As our talk turned to the difficulties of mastering the Australian accent, a feat which even brought Meryl Streep undone (in Evil Angels), Radcliffe asked if I thought his was "any good''.

Chuffed by my "yes'' and "incredibly grateful'' to hear he fooled at least one person (truth be told it was my sister) into thinking he actually was Australian, the actor said he worked on it with a team that included National Theatre dialect coach Kate Godfrey.

"Then, you know, being on set and being with an Australian crew obviously really helped and having the other three boys there was good as well because I was constantly picking up pointers,'' he says.

So did he learn any good slang swear words?

"They're the same ones in English really, aren't they,'' he says. "I know the word bogan, but it's not really a swear word. There was bogan and there was another one, it was bit like bogan.''

Bevan? "Bevan! Yeh, that's the other one,'' he says.

While Radcliffe has made no secret of his admiration and desire to work with the likes of Scarlett Johanssen, his eye is also focused on another rising Aussie star.

"If we're talking about Australian actresses, someone who's a bit older than me but I think is very, very sexy is Emily Barclay,'' he says.

"And the thing that makes her sexy is that she's so talented. I watched her in Suburban Mayhem the other night. I thought it was a really good film all the performances were excellent but she so was brilliant in it.''