HARRY POTTER - RADCLIFFE LANDS SLAIN PHOTOGRAPHER ROLE

HARRY POTTER star DANIEL RADCLIFFE has fought off competition from HEATH LEDGER and ORLANDO BLOOM to land the lead role in a new movie about a slain photo-journalist. The 22-year-old will appear as photographer Dan Eldon in Journey, a film chronicling the civil war in Somalia. Eldon was one of four journalists stoned to death by a mob in the African country in 1993. And Eldon's mother Kathy believes Radcliffe was the perfect choice to play her tragic son. She says, "We resisted a lot of older actors because Dan was a boy emerging into manhood." A compilation of Eldon's diaries - on which the film is based - has sold 200,000 copies since being published in 1997.