Rupert Grint

Rupert Grint looks slightly uncomfortable. The young British star may be the veteran of no less than six Harry Potter movies with numbers seven and eight on their way, but right now he looks less than convincing as a stylist helps him into his tight leather vest which will feature on the very pages you are now leafing through. Maybe it's his inner wizard, perhaps just that there doesn't seem to be much rock 'n' roll in the flame headed actor, but between shots, the fashionable attire appears out of place on the young man known to millions as Ron Weasley.


It is when the photos are done and Grint joins me on a couch in the filthy North London pub we have sequestered that he looks more relaxed, though truth be told Grint's unease may have been entirely in my mind, for one on one, his laid back manner offers nothing but a deep, meditative air of calm. Of course this is all in a day's work for Grint, who has been in the public eye ever since he was cast in the impossibly successful film adaptations of the Harry Potter series of books. Only ten years old at the time he has effectively done the bulk of his growing up (more than half his life) in front of the film going public.
Now at the age of 21 he is on the verge of adulthood, still living at home but one of the highest paid people under 25 in the world. It is a distinction he shares with his two co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, three young actors who are now at a crucial stage in their careers as they start to think about life outside the franchise that has made them all incredibly successful. Radcliffe and Watson's futures have been playing out for a little while now. Radcliffe has been dabbling in theatre and television for many years whilst Watson is currently the highest paid actress in the world and as of June 2009 has been the face of Burberry – though she is to leave acting behind for a time to focus on university in America.
It has been Grint whose star has taken a little longer to rise. The actor has already featured in two films, though neither have stirred much critical praise (the first, Thunderpants in 2002 saw Grint playing best friend to a boy with earthmoving flatulence, while the eccentrically sentimental Driving Lessons from 2006 garnered only luke warm reviews). But as Grint and his chums near the end of their fantasy film tenure a new side to the flame haired actor is about to emerge and the two films he is set to appear in should go a long way to help dispel the image of bashful, caped wand waver.
First up is Cherrybomb, a fast and slick movie about friendship, behavioural inheritance and the perils of youthful exuberance. In the film Grint and his best friend compete for the affections of his boss' daughter who just happens to be trouble on a stick. It was a film that Grint was more than happy to be involved with, but shaking off his magic cloak was not part of the decision behind doing the movie.
“It wasn't really that conscious actually,” says the actor of taking on the role. “It just kind of happened. The script came along when we had just finished the sixth movie (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) and it just fitted the gap. It was very different too, quite an adult sort of role. So yeah it worked out well. But it was nice to play a character with some more depth who was a bit more real I suppose.”
Grint admits that he was concerned about playing such a role, given that for the most part he has only played a mixture of scared and awkward in his years as Ron Weasley.
“It was quite daunting actually,” confesses the soft spoken actor. “But as the Harry Potter movies have gone on there has been more in them and my character has developed more. But up to recently it was just me playing this scared guy, a bit worried with the odd light-hearted line. So I never got to push myself so I was quite worried about doing Cherrybomb because there's a lot going on with this character, it was a real challenge. The accent as well because it's a Northern Irish accent so it was quite worrying especially because the crew was all from Belfast.”
Grint explains that as his co-stars, Robert Sheehan and Kimberley Nixon were also British the three of them supported each other with learning the thick Irish drawl.
The film is slickly shot and heavily stylised in the manner of the likes of Shallow Grave or Lock, Stock... which can be attributed to the graphic design background of Glenn Leyburn, who alongside partner Lisa Barros D'Sa directed the film. For Grint it looks like Cherrybomb and Wild Target – the second of his soon-to-released films are perfectly timed. As the character of Ron Weasley prepares to take his final curtain call with the two part release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows over the next year, it is imperative that Grint is able to be seen as a versatile actor. With his foppish mop of red hair neatly brylcreamed into submission for Cherrybomb the physical transformation is immediate. Though it remains to seen whether people will be able to dissimulate between the Rupert Grint they have seen mature into a young man through a series of wizard movies and the considerably more street wise, up-for-it youth who isn't above joy riding and sneaking a few cheeky lines in a club loo that his character Malachy displays. It takes a little bit of time to get it out of him, and I sense that he doesn't even want to be saying anything in any way remotely negative about the nurturing role that has made him, but after some prodding he admits to me that after so many years of treading the same ground, the Harry Potter movies are starting to feel a bit “contained” and “routine”.
Born in Essex in August of 1988 to a housewife and memorabilia dealer, Rupert Grint had no real previous ties to acting before Harry Potter, unlike his two co-stars. Although he had appeared in the odd school play, he had neither the acting genes that Daniel Radcliffe inherited, nor the early desire to become an actor that grabbed a hold of Watson at the age of six. In fact it was by “fluke” that Grint even sent in an audition for the movie that would irrevocably change his life. Even after he landed the role it was some time before he started to take the job seriously, or to see it as a job at all.
“I mean it never really occurred to me that it was a job when I first started. It was just the fun thing I was doing at the moment. But I suppose it was a few films in really, about film three or four, when the process became clear and it felt like the playtime was over, that it was actually quite hard work. I suppose it was then that I really knew I wanted to keep doing this. I loved it, I was having such an amazing time.”
Having been there for each other from the beginning, it is no surprise that the three starts of Harry Potter have formed close ties with each other, though as their on-screen time together draws to a close, Grint furthers that they may have to also let each other go as well.
“We are all quite different and all have our agendas on what we want to do,” he says of their relationships, “but we have been through quite a lot with each other. It's been a long time and it is quite an intimate process, filming together for so long because you see each other all day every day, so you form close bonds. We'll definitely keep in touch when it's all over but we don't really see each other outside of filming.”
Of the fame and near worldwide recognition that he has encountered through the movies, he remains humble and unphased by the attention. Admitting that he cannot go anywhere without people recognising him (he says it's the hair that gives him away), he just chooses his moments (not around the release of one of the movies) and places (not a busy pub on a Friday or Saturday night).
The one downside that Grint has found about his fame is that as he has been filming every year for the past ten years he hasn't had the time to some of the things that a lot of people his age have done, like travelling the world. In this respect he feels he has “some catching up to do,” just as soon as the last Harry Potter film is done with, in about five months.
Before then there will be another round of press to do for Wild Target, in which Grint puts down the magic potions and picks up the semi-automatic weapons.
“Again it was a very different kind of character and it was very real,” explains Grint of the movie. “There were no special effects or magical creatures. It's a remake of a French movie and it's got a really good dark humour to it. It's based around these three characters who are all quite independent people who are all missing something in their lives. It all centres around Bill Nighy's character who is a professional assassin who is on the verge of retirement and is going through a mid-life crisis. He can't complete his contract; he's meant to kill Emily Blunt's character who is a big con artist and professional thief. So we all meet in this big shoot off in this big dramatic situation and we all form this weird kind of family. It was a fun film to do.”
Next up, Grint has been strongly rumoured to play Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards in a biopic of the most celebrated, undecorated ski-jumper in the history of the sport. Grint quips that though he can't ski this may actually be a good attribute to have for the film. Filming will start for the movie once Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows wraps. On the end of the movies that have made him the star that he is, Grint remarks that “it is a weird thought that after that we'll be done with it. I never thought it would end really because it's been such a big part of my life for so long. It will be kind of like leaving school and graduating but I'm glad I've had a taste of what being in real movies is like, because I don't think I'll ever be in another movie like Harry Potter, it's quite unique.”
With that, Grint smiles as he thinks about the moment his career got off the ground.
“I was very lucky,” he chuckles in recalling the situation. “It's quite scary to think what I would have done with my life so far if I hadn't sent off that form.”