Meet the girl who cast a spell on Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe

Article from:

MILES KEMP

April 22, 2008 09:40pm

FORMER Adelaide woman Cassi McKay believes she could be the Aussie girl Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe is searching the world for after a chance encounter last year.
Her mother, Vicki McKay, contacted Adelaidenow yesterday after reading in The Advertiser of Radcliffe's regret that he had no way of contacting the woman who had captured his attention.
Mrs McKay believes the star's account of the encounter at the Australian Film Institute awards last year was so similar to her daughter's that he must have been talking about her.
Speaking from Sydney where she now works, Cassi McKay, 20, nervously agreed and provided a photograph of the pair meeting.
"He was looking at me a bit and I guess I was batting my eyelids back," said Ms McKay, a trumpet player who has performed at the AFIs. "We did make a lot of eye contact with each other. David Campbell introduced us and I got to talk to him briefly."
The star of the Harry Potter movies, Radcliffe spoke of his disappointment that the woman in question carried out a Cinderella-like vanishing act before he could get her phone number.
"I must have walked around that party for an hour trying to look for this girl like some sad, pathetic dweeb but it would have been so worth it," he told The Advertiser.
Ms McKay and two friends posed for a photograph with the 18-year-old, but Cassi - who has a boyfriend of some 2 1/2 years' standing - said it ended there.
"We said hello and had a quick chat and for the rest of the night, just because I was fascinated, we were sort of smiling and making eye contact," she said.
She is not convinced she is the one sought by Radcliffe but said her memory of the encounter seemed very similar to his.
"It seems too unbelievable to be real but it is a very big co-incidence," she said.
"I couldn't ask for his phone number, I mean he's famous."
Although committed to her current relationship, Ms McKay said she would be keen to organise a second audience with Radcliffe while she was overseas.
"I've told my boyfriend about him and I'd be keen to meet up," she said.
Coincidentally, she will be in London at the end of next week.
The Advertiser has sent her photograph to Radcliffe's management to see if she is the one.