While the Harry Potter films feature several actors who were already established and well known, such as Maggie Smith, Gary Oldman and the late Alan Rickman, the main cast of kids were all basically newcomers, and the franchise catapulted them to fame. And this kind of fame is not something anyone can truly be prepared for.
Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in all eight movies, had a particularly hard time dealing with the pressure of such a major role. While making the first entry, 2001’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, was a great experience for the actor, that movie’s success opened up the young cast to the world of paparazzi, red carpets and tabloids.
Games Rant recently uncovered a 2018 interview with The Guardian where Grint opened up about being an introvert in the spotlight. He even revealed he considered quitting the Harry Potter franchise more than once. The actor was only 13 when the first movie came out, meaning he spent all of his teenage years as Ron Weasley, something that couldn’t have been easy.
Rupert Grint felt “overwhelming weight of responsibility” from Harry Potter
“For the first few Harry Potter films I was living the dream,” Grint said. “The reason I auditioned was because I loved the books. When I got to film three or four, I started to feel an overwhelming weight of responsibility because they were so phenomenally popular. The whole press and red carpet thing was an attack on the senses. I don’t excel in that kind of environment.”
"There were definitely times when I thought about leaving. Filming Harry Potter was a massive sacrifice; working from such a young age for such long periods and I definitely remember thinking during one extended break, ‘This whole thing is so all consuming, do I really want to go back? Maybe it’s just not for me.’ I guess I was probably just being a teenager."
He also talked about the “growing narrative” he felt during filming that he was destined to be involved in “some big scandal off-screen.” Fortunately for Grint, that never happened.
Grint and his co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson were turned into modern pop culture icons as the Harry Potter films became more and more popular, and that type of overnight fame must be difficult for anyone to navigate, no matter what age.
Now 33 years old, Grint stars in the Apple TV+ series Servant, with its third season scheduled to premiere in January 2022.
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