It's hard these days to think of Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter although I doubt he will ever truly escape the character that shot him to fame, mind you he's doing a damn good job of diversifying to shake him off and his next role is another one of those characters.

He'll be playing the real life American journalist Jake Adelstein, a crime reporter on the largest newspaper by circulation in the world, the Japanese paper Yomiuri Shimbun.

The story will follow Adelstein as his beginnings as the first westerner to join the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Press Club and his eye opening expose of a Yakuza boss who was given a liver transplant in America through to him becoming the crime reporter on the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.

The film is entitled Tokyo Vice and is based on the memoirs of the reporter himself who was looking for the right team to adapt the book, a team that wouldn't take too many liberties with the real story. As he says through The Hollywood Reporter:

"I had a number of people interested in adapting the book, but I was concerned what would happen if I didn't have some say in what happened to the screenplay. I would have issues if a lot of liberties were taken, as this is the story of my life…"

The stage writer J.T. Rogers has adapted the book for script and the video and commercials director Anthony Mandler is set to direct. According to the story Adelstein has been working hard with Rogers on the script.

He has praise for the actor chosen to play him, although I do think he's understating the abilitys of Radcliffe somewhat, he has become a superb actor since Potter:

"Daniel Radcliffe is 24, about the same age as I was when I began as a cub reporter. I think he's really maturing as an actor and will be great for the role…"

It's an interesting role for Radcliffe and an interesting film. There's a lot of focus from Hollywood on Japan and the Far East and this looks like one of the more interesting projects coming out of that fascination.