Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe's role in "Kill Your Darlings" is generating massive buzz from fans excited to see the nude gay sex scene in the film which premiered at Sundance on Friday. Reuters

Daniel Radcliffe’s latest role in “Kill Your Darlings” is generating massive buzz, not because of his role as poet Allen Ginsberg but for the nude gay love scene. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Radcliffe goes completely nude for a gay sex scene with a man in the film, shares a kiss with co-star Dane DeHaan and has another sex scene with a library clerk as his co-star watches off in the distance, MTV said.

The explicit sex scenes piqued interest from fans after “Kill Your Darlings” premiered at Sundance on Friday, much to the 23-year-old actor’s confusion.

"It's interesting that it's deemed shocking," Radcliffe told MTV News. "For me, there's something very strange about that because we see straight sex scenes all the time. We've seen gay sex scenes before. I don't know why a gay sex scene should be any more shocking than a straight sex scene. Or both of them are equally un-shocking."

In his Broadway debut, Radcliffe did a nude scene in “Equus,” which was a far departure from his squeaky clean image in the “Harry Potter” franchise.

"What weirded me out the most last night was people were asking me all these questions about the gay sex scenes. I was like, 'You know I did ‘Equus’?' " Radcliffe told MTV. "Some people are asking me questions like this is a more shocking subject, which is so strange."

In the film, Radcliffe plays the late Beat poet Ginsberg in 1944 when he met Jack Kerouac, played by Jack Huston, and William S. Burroughs, played by Ben Foster, at Columbia University during World War II. “Kill Your Darlings,” directed by John Krokidas, depicts Ginsberg’s journey to embrace his homosexuality as he becomes infatuated with Lucien Carr, played by DeHaan, who eventually gets Ginsberg involved in a murder.

All the buzz about the gay sex scene and residual interest from the “Harry Potter” franchise is fine with Radcliffe, who said he’s just happy to have people seeing his film.

"I don't care why people come and see films. If they come and see a film about the beat poets because they saw me in 'Harry Potter,' fantastic. That's a wonderful thing," Radcliffe said at Sundance. "I feel like I have an opportunity to capitalize on 'Potter' by doing work that might not otherwise get attention. If I can help get a film like this attention, that's without doubt, that's a great thing."

Critics seem to be responding well to the film itself, aside from the sex scenes, as well as the actor's departure from Hogwarts. Vulture writes:

“Daniel Radcliffe has Sundance audiences buzzing for his work in the John Krokidas directed 'Kill Your Darlings' … While there's been plenty of chatter about the kiss both actors share — and the pivotal gay sex scene that Radcliffe has later in the film — the role is most notable for how convincingly Radcliffe is able to put Harry Potter behind him in order to disappear into a new character (albeit one with another set of distinctive eyeglasses).”