Radcliffe, Anderson has a "glint behind his eye..."

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I could have told him that! And a whole lot more... (But I'm not bragging.)

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FIRST LOOK: Daniel Radcliffe Sings & Dances on Broadway!

By Stephen M. Silverman
Wednesday February 23, 2011 04:00 PM EST


Daniel Radcliffe (front and center), rehearsing How To Succeed in Business
Without Really Trying, with John Larroquette behind him
Ari Mintz

Jon Hamm, move over. The latest looker to leap back into the 1960s: Daniel Radcliffe, who is assuming the musical role of quintessential company man J. Pierrepont Finch in the new Broadway revival of the 1961 classic How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

As shown in these exclusive-to-PEOPLE rehearsal shots, Radcliife is already off and running ahead of the chorus. As Finch, he starts in the mailroom of Manhattan's World Wide Wicket and works his way up the corporate ladder.

En route, he meets the adoring secretary Rosemary Pilkington – played by Philadelphia-born Rose Hemingway, in her Broadway debut after touring nationally in Mamma Mia. She's also appeared in Donmar Warehouse's U.S. production of Parade at Los Angeles's Mark Taper Forum.

In the production, which marks Radcliffe's return to the Great White Way for the first time since starring in a 2008 revival of Equus – Anderson Cooper narrates Finch's meteoric rise ... and fall.

"Anderson Cooper just always stood out for me," the Harry Potter star, 21, says on the How to Succeed Web site about the CNN anchor. "He always had this kind of really cool ... playful glint behind his eye, I think, which I always found quite funny."

Also in the cast: John Larroquette, as J.B. Biggley, the boss of the World Wide Wicket Company, who admires Finch's fortitude. Previews begin Feb. 26 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, with the opening night set for March 27.

Coincidentally, Radcliffe's role made a star of Robert Morse when he originated J. Pierrepont Finch in the original How to … 50 years ago (and in the 1967 movie) – and, today, Morse, 79, memorably stars on Mad Men, as the advertising company's founder, Bertram Cooper.


Rose Hemingway and Daniel Radcliffe
Ari Mintz