Rupert Grint may have landed the role of a lifetime in the famed “Harry Potter” franchise, but the actor admits not all was what it seemed.
The 34-year-old, who found global stardom starring as 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’d promote the rest of the time. It was quite suffocating,” the Brit told Bustle.
“I wanted a break, to reflect on everything… It was an out-of-body experience for a while, but I think we finished at the right time. If we continued, it could’ve gone downhill.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the father of one said “the lines were blurred” between his character and his own persona with each film.
“I was feeling the difficulty of being seen, being overshadowed,” he explained. “In the movies, we merged into one. By the end of it, I was playing myself. The lines were blurred.”
Grint revealed he still answers to “Ron” if someone addresses him that way, adding that it’s his “second name.”
Growing up in the public eye also brought a “competitive element” into play among the cast.
“‘Who’s doing what?’ people contrasting our careers. We’re all completely different and going along different paths,” he said of his former co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.
“I’ve always felt there was this expectation for us to go off the rails, follow the child star stereotype,” he added. “That’s always been something to fight against.”
Grint’s other acting credits include starring 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 creepily copes by raising a doll.
The actor shares his daughter, Wednesday G. Grint, with his partner Georgia Groome. The pair welcomed their first child in May 2020.
Grint and Groome, who played Georgia Nicolson in “Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging,” began dating in 2011.