Rupert Grint may have landed the role of a lifetime in the famous ‘Harry Potter’ franchise, but the actor admits that all was not as it seemed.
The 34-year-old, who rose to global fame playing Harry Potter’s best friend Ron Weasley from 2001 to 2011, said the experience was “suffocating” at times.
“Potter was so full on – [filming] all year, then we would promote the rest of the time. It was quite suffocating,” the Briton told Bustle.
“I wanted to take a break, think about everything… It was an out of body experience for a while, but I think we finished at the right time. If we had continued, it could have deteriorated.
Elsewhere in the interview, the father of one said “the lines have 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. In the end, I was playing myself. The lines were blurry.
Grint revealed that he always responds to “Ron” if someone addresses him that way, adding that it is his “middle name”.
Growing up in the public eye also brought into play a “competitive element” among the actors.
” ‘Who does what ?’ people contrasting our careers. We are all completely different and walk different paths,” he said of his former co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.
“I always thought there was this expectation for us to get off the rails, to follow the child star stereotype,” he added. “It’s always been something to fight against.”
Grint’s other acting credits include the lead role in M. Night Shyamalan’s Apple TV+ thriller “Servant,” in which he plays the brother of a woman shaken by the death of her baby who survives in raising a doll.
The actor shares daughter, Wednesday G. Grint, with girlfriend Georgia Groome. The couple welcomed their first child in May 2020.
Grint and Groome, who played Georgia Nicolson in “Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging,” started dating in 2011.