(NOTE LANGUAGE) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone turns 20 this year and actor Rupert Grint, who played Harry’s trusty best friend Ron Weasley in all eight Harry Potter movies, is only now starting to detach himself from the beloved character.
The Servant star spoke with Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast Monday and discussed how he avoided being typecast as the food-loving and dependable best friend.
Grint admitted that, while he loved working on the film franchise, portraying the same character for a decade had a downside.
“There definitely was a time where it felt quite suffocating,” he said. “It was a great place to be but, sometimes, it definitely felt like, ‘I want to do something else. See what else is out there.'”
That impulse “grew” as the years went by, said the 32-year-old actor. That itch was satisfied when he was. cast as Julian Pearce on Apple TV+’s Servant, a character that is very unlike Ron Weasley.
Grint says his new character is “such a d****bag” but enjoys that the role “is different to anything I’ve done before.”
Still, Grint has nothing but love for his first acting role, telling Shepard, “I was obsessed with that character,” which is why he isn’t quite ready to let go.
“I can’t detach myself fully [from the movies yet,]” he confessed. “I can’t face it… It still feels too soon.”
The actor also revealed the inspiration behind his newborn child’s name, telling Shepard that his wife Georgia Groome wanted their child to have a “cooler name.”
“[My wife and I] started calling her Wednesday before she was born and it just kind of stuck,” said Grint, joking that they gave their daughter a name that will be “easy to spell.”