By the time Daniel Radcliffe appears from his holding area behind the screen, the crowd at Toronto's Scotiabank Theatre is near hysteria. Seated for nearly two hours without any contact from the outside world – cell phones were confiscated at the door – those lucky enough to receive a ticket arrived under the guise of an advanced preview of Radcliffe's first post-Harry Potter film, the ghost-themed The Woman in Black. But the drawn-on forehead scars, themed lunchboxes and Hogwarts scarfs that dominate the heavily-guarded theatre indicate the screening is merely an excuse to spend some time "breathing the same air" (as one giddy fan squealed hours earlier in line) as their wizardly obsession.

As Radcliffe enters, jumping in place to contain his lemur-eyed excitment (or, as he calls it, "my attack"), it's easy to understand the symbiotic relationship Radcliff has with his, for lack of a better word, groupies. Having spent half his life in the spotlight, Radcliff is at once an industry veteran and, at the tender age of 22, a hungry young actor; one minute deflecting declarations of love ("I love you too, but I think we should see other people"), the next confessing his desire to mature in both his personal and professional life.

It's this internal strife that makes the young actor not only one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, but also one of the most intriguing. It's hard to take Radcliff, all five and a half feet of him, with anything but sincerity because, frankly, no one can understand what the "right way" to act is in such scenarios, least of all Radcliffe himself.

"There's no blueprint to where I want to be at this point," he tells Dose.ca the next day. "I see myself as a young, good actor who still has a lot to learn."

Perception plays a large role in Radcliffe's life. As with any actor coming out of a major movie franchise, it's important to him to establish himself as a serious performer while simultaneously avoiding alienating the ticket-buying public who vault any project he's involved with into the spotlight.

With that in mind, it's difficult to understand why Radcliffe, an admitted non-believer and horror abhorer, chose Arthur Kipps – The Woman in Black's bereaving and seemingly doomed protagonist – as his first on-screen role since he and "Harry" split ways.

Not surprisingly, the young actor has quite a lot to say on the subject.

"I was under no illusions that people would see this film and think, 'Christ, he's not Harry Potter anymore. He's completely transformed.' I didn't ever think that was going to happen. But I think it's a good first step in terms that I look very different; I play a man rather than a boy. It's a different type of film to be in and I think all that stuff is very useful for an audience to see that I'm going to be doing different stuff.

"I don't think that's specific to somebody coming out of a franchise. I think any actor worth his soul wants to show as much versatility as they possibly can. So yes, definitely over the next couple of years I want to be doing as much work as possible and I want it to be as varied as possible."

Perhaps due to his childlike appearance and enthusiasm when he speaks of his deep need to try to progress and his passive-aggressive frustration with both his fans and the media, it comes off as someone simply trying to wrap their head around the right career blueprint.

"Somebody said to me the other day, 'Do you think your Harry Potter fans will stick with you?'" he says. "I said, 'if they stuck me through Equus (his Broadway play which controversially featured a nude scene for the then 17-year-old actor), they won't mind this film.' The Woman in Black is nothing compared to that."

Based on the 1983 Susan Hill novel of the same name, The Woman in Black is tame by horror film standards. Stylistically somewhere between Spanish psychological horror films like Alejandro Amenábar's The Others and American version of The Ring, it attempts to make up for its lack of gore by depending heavily on characters and, more specifically, Radcliffe's acting ability, which, while strong, is constantly undermined by his extremely youthful appearance.

"I used to joke that I'm a 'point and click' actor. My whole process has been really about trusting your instincts," he says of his shortcomings. "We filmed this movie a year and a half ago and I've come along a lot since then. My current ability and potential is being measured on my work from over a year ago, which is a pretty strange thought.

"I find it quite hard to come to grips with that but I think over the next couple of years I'm going to hopefully come along leaps and bounds."

In Radcliffe's mind, the present is already the past and he's anxious. He comes across as having a shark mentality – keep moving forward or drown.

"The next couple of years for me is going to be about finding people to work with who are going to push me because I've never trained," he says, maintaining intense eye-contact. "The only way I'm going to get better is by taking risks and working with people who I think are going to improve me. So that's what the next couple of years are going to be about. "

For now, the immediate future means focusing on his upcoming role as poet Allen Ginsberg in the upcoming Kill Your Darlings, which begins shooting in March.

And while he's "terrified but very excited" for that role, the young actor with more money than the royal couple has his eye on working with a fellow Brit: Russell Brand.

"I always thought he'd be fantastically entertaining and fun to work with," Radcliffe enthuses.

And what of his former Potter pals?

Radcliffe says that, of all this potential mentors from the shoot, he's remained closest with Alan Rickman, who played Severus Snape in the series of films.

"Alan Rickman came and saw the show twice and took me out for dinner," he says before catching himself boasting and turning to humorous self-deprecation. "He [relayed] some pieces of advice but you know some things sound amazing in Alan Rickman's voice and if I said them to you they wouldn't have nearly the impact, but when he said them to me it seemed quite profound."

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