Who will star as Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming film version of The Hobbit? You can cross one name off the list: Daniel Radcliffe.

The star of the Harry Potter films says he has no interest in any new project “with any wizards in it”. “I’d have to say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’, not that anyone has asked me,” the 20-year-old said.

“Honestly, I don’t think they would want me anyway, it’s just too close. Whatever I do next, I don’t think there will be any wizards in it!”

Radcliffe is now at work on the seventh and eighth films in the Harry Potter franchise, and by the 2011 release of the last film in the series, he will have spent more than a decade inhabiting the role of the orphaned boy wizard.

The sixth Potter film, released in July, is closing in on $830-million (R6,3-billion) in worldwide box office. The collective franchise is now more than $5,3-billion in global box office.

Radcliffe is one of several names that have popped up again and again as fans chew on the casting challenge for The Hobbit, the two-film companion piece to the massively successful Lord Of The Rings franchise.

Oscar-winning Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson is back as a producer this time, and Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) is in as director.The Hobbit is planned as a $300m project with releases in 2011 and 2012.

In a recent US poll, more than 5 700 votes were cast, and Radcliffe came in third behind James McAvoy (Atonement) and David Tennant (Doctor Who) as the best choice to play the itinerant Bilbo. Radcliffe says he casts his own ballot for Scottish actor McAvoy.

"James McAvoy is fantastic. I think he should play it. I've done the fantasy-film thing. Actually, so has he, with The Chronicles of Narnia, of course. But I've done it for longer. He can take over. I'm done. I don't think anybody involved in that would want me to, either."