Christmas jumper too tight, Ron? Although Rupert Grint is grateful for the Harry Potter franchise, filming wasn’t always easy, he revealed during the Monday, March 8, episode of Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast.
“There was a time where it felt quite suffocating,” the 32-year-old actor, who played the red-headed wizard Ron Weasley in the beloved series, said. “Because it was heavy going, because it was every day for, I think, 10 years in the end. … Sometimes it definitely felt like, ‘I want to do something else. I want to see what else is out there.’”
When Grint first started filming the Harry Potter movies, only “three or four” books had been released. There were originally only supposed to be two movies, pending the audience’s reaction.
“It never ended. Every year we came back. It was kind of like Groundhog Day,” the English star said. “The same sets, the same people.”
In his interview, Shepard, 46, asked Grint if he had any fears that the fantasy films would hurt his career and that fans wouldn’t be able to see him as anyone but his iconic character.
“I was obsessed with that character, so for me, it was all about being Ron. I didn’t really see a career after it was done. I didn’t see that far ahead,” the Servant actor said.
The Snatch alum has spoken about his relationship to the eight films, which he worked on from 2001 to 2011, before. In early February, the former child star made headlines when he told Variety he hadn’t watched all the movies he’d dedicated a decade of his life to.
“I’ve probably seen the first three at the premieres, but after that, I stopped watching them,” the U.K. native said. “But now that I have a daughter, I will probably have to watch them with her.”
The People’s Choice Award winner welcomed his first child, Wednesday, with girlfriend Georgia Groome in May 2020.
Grint isn’t sure why exactly he hasn’t watched the films, but said it may be because he felt so conscious of his face while filming and would rather “be in the moment and create” than care about the final product.
Still, his re-watch has begun. The Sick Note alum told Shepard he watched the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, for a second time recently.
