Growing up in spotlight is tough.

• Position: TIME OUT

Byline: Jim Keogh

COLUMN: FILM CLIPS

If you've ever thought about a career change, you know the prospect can be daunting. Shifting professions will inevitably mean more training, perhaps an advanced degree, and saying goodbye to your comfort zone for a scary new work situation. Still, the steps you've got to take to make the change are generally well marked.

But if your current job is to wear horn-rimmed glasses, ride a broom and fight giant spiders and dragons, what's your next career move?

Easy. You get naked and cavort with horses on a London stage.

In case you hadn't heard - although, really, how could you not - Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, has shed his boy-wizard's robe. Last week, publicity photos were released of Radcliffe's upcoming theater gig as the troubled - and briefly nude - young man with the horse fixation in "Equus." The photos were of a shirtless Harry, er, Daniel, looking agitated, thin-but-muscular, the way 17-year-olds are before they fill out into more permanent proportions.

This is a big step for Radcliffe as he plots his transition from kid wonder to adult actor. Already his physique has become the buzz on fan chat rooms. Looking up some biographical info on the actor in IMDB.com, I noticed several chat threads launched with subject lines like "His abbs!" (sic), and "OMG! Wow he has a nice bod!" As you can imagine, the succeeding conversations did not involve deep dissertations about which hilosophies of acting they expect Mr. Radcliffe will embrace as he ages, or whether he'll ever attempt Hamlet.

Good for Harry, er, Daniel! If he's going to make the statement that he refuses to be professionally imprisoned by the stone walls of Hogwarts, he should do it in a big, OMG kind of way.

And he certainly must start now putting away the things of childhood. There are far too many horror stories of young actors who never could progress beyond the roles that made them famous before they'd lost all their baby teeth.

You can trace back to the silent era to find them. One of the greatest screen legends in history, Mary Pickford, became famous as a girl for her head of golden curls and sweet, radiant face. But the public would accept her as nothing other than "America's Sweetheart," which kept her so anchored in her innocent persona that she was playing a 12-year-old girl in "Pollyanna" at the age of 27.

In 1928, in a fit of rebellion, Pickford cut her hair and won an Academy Award as an ill-tempered flapper in "Coquette,"...