The Boy Who Lived wouldnt have done so without a bit of luck, and Daniel Radcliffe knows that playing him required some too.

The actors new film, Escape from Pretoria , is based on the real-life story of Tim Jenkin, a white South African political activist who, after being arrested for distributing anti-apartheid pamphlets alongside fellow activist Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber), escapes from Pretoria Central Prison.

A central theme in the movie, and the reasoning that pushes Jenkin and Lee to escape the prison, is the belief that inaction in the face of oppression is complicity.

Unless we got up from our privileged white lives and did something, our words were meaningless, Radcliffes Jenkin says early on in the film.

The actor praised Jenkin and the other political prisoners for recognizing their privilege and trying to use it to help others. I think thats a really remarkable thing, Radcliffe told HuffPost. I think we all like to think that in that kind of society we would be able to see it as the amoral thing that it is. But actually very few do.

During our interview, he reflected on how white privilege has affected his own life, too.

My entire life and career is built on luck and privilege, he said. Its just sort of allowed to be the case. I definitely dont want people to think I got anywhere because I just worked really hard. Anyone whos successful in anything, for the most part even if you did work really hard, which Im sure people did theres still a massive amount of luck involved. I mean, my life is an insane example of a place of luck.

The actor said that landing the role of Harry Potter set up the direction his career would eventually take.

I got incredibly lucky when I was 10 or 11 and then that afforded me opportunities that I would unquestionably not have been afforded had I not had that stroke of luck, Radcliffe said. When I was 17, I was in the West End. Theres very few people that go from having never done a play to doing a play in the West End.