Rupert Grint may have landed the role of a lifetime in the famed “Harry Potter” franchise, but the actor admits that all was not as it seemed.
The 34-year-old, who rose to world fame starring as Harry Potter’s best friend Ron Weasley from 2001 to 2011, said the experience was “suffocating” at times.
“Potter was so full – [filming] all year, then we promote the rest of the time. It was quite suffocating,” the Briton told Bustle.
“I wanted a break, to think about everything… It was a disembodiment for a while, but I think we were ready at the right time. If we had continued, it could have gone downhill.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the father of one said that “the lines became blurred” between his character and his own personality with each film.
“I felt the difficulty of being seen, of being overshadowed,” he explained. “In the movies, we merged into one. Towards the end I played myself. The lines were blurred.”
Grint revealed that he still replies to “Ron” when someone addresses him that way, adding that it’s his “middle name”.
Growing up in the public eye also brought a “competitive element” into play among the cast.
“‘Who does what?’ people who contrast our careers. We are all completely different and take different paths,” he said of his former co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.
“I always felt there was an expectation that we would go off the rails, follow the stereotypical child star,” he added. “That’s always been something to fight against.”
Grint’s other acting credits include starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s Apple TV+ thriller “Servant,” in which he plays the brother of a woman shocked by the death of her baby and treated in a creepy way by a doll. to raise.
The actor shares his daughter, Wednesday G. Grint, with his partner Georgia Groome. The couple welcomed their first child in May 2020.
Grint and Groome, who played Georgia Nicolson in “Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging,” began dating in 2011.