Of the three young actors who grew up in the glare of the Harry Potter spotlight, Rupert Grint has been the least conspicuous since the franchise that turned them all into multi-millionaires ended almost a decade ago.
Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry, has been lauded for sterling work on both stage and screen, but has also been candid about his struggles with alcohol.
Emma Watson, who was cast as Hermione Granger, has been acclaimed for films including 2017’s live-action Beauty And The Beast and the recently released Little Women, but she’s made just as many headlines for her right-on activism, most recently sharing her views on ‘self-partnering’.
Rupert, who appeared as Harry’s loyal sidekick Ron Weasley, has kept his head down, appearing mainly in voiceover work for the few years after Potter.
Of the three young actors who grew up in the glare of the Harry Potter spotlight, Rupert Grint (pictured) has been the least conspicuous since the franchise ended almost a decade ago
He reannounced himself two years ago with the lead role in Sky’s Sick Note, a black comedy series in which his character is misdiagnosed with cancer and then decides to keep up the pretence, before appearing as Inspector Crome in the BBC’s Agatha Christie adaptation The ABC Murders at Christmas 2018.
He’s still one of the most famous people in the world, but he’s managed to keep his private life, and his thoughts, to himself. He’s been dating actress Georgia Groome since 2011, for example, but nobody knew until about a year ago.
He’s now back on screen in M Night Shyamalan’s psychological horror series Servant, being shown on Apple TV+, which is creepy, twisty and shockingly addictive.
Rupert plays Julian Pearce, whose well-to-do sister Dorothy and her husband Sean have just lost their baby Jericho, resulting in Dorothy having a breakdown.
As part of her grief therapy she replaces the baby with a ‘reborn doll’ – an extremely lifelike silicone reproduction of a newborn baby (these are used therapeutically in real life when women are struggling to conceive, or have suffered a cot death).
But it’s when she hires a teenaged Bible-bashing nanny to care for ‘Jericho’ that the spookiness really ramps up.
Rupert, who appeared as Harry’s loyal sidekick Ron Weasley (pictured), has kept his head down, appearing mainly in voiceover work for the few years after Potter
Shyamalan has said Rupert’s role was pivotal. Although he’s not the lead – he’s the main character’s brash brother – he steals every scene he’s in with his hubris and snazzy suits, one of them a blue tartan tweed affair that’s both ridiculous and charming.
His sister is played by Lauren Ambrose, the flame-haired actress from Six Feet Under, and they look as if they could be related.
‘Ever since I saw her in Six Feet Under I wanted to play her relative,’ says Rupert when we meet in a London hotel. ‘It felt natural playing her brother.’
Although Julian is totally over the top, he’s the man you’d go to in a crisis. ‘He’s always two steps ahead,’ says Rupert.
‘He’s funny, he’s got a way with words, which is what I liked about the scripts, and he’s always popping in for a tequila! I think you always put a bit of yourself into the character, but he’s everything I’m not. He’s very confident and not that likeable at the start.’
I love kids and I really want them one day
Rupert actually owns a reborn doll himself. ‘It’s a vampire doll with little fangs, but you still want to look after it and handle it carefully. Reborn dolls are a real form of therapy.’
So how did he acquire his – surely it wasn’t therapeutic? ‘No, it was because people know I collect weird things.’
He says the presence of real babies on set made him quite broody. ‘We had triplets on set as well as the dolls. I love kids and I really do want them one day. Servant taps into this primal fear we have about protecting our young, and the show twists that part of the brain.’
His passion for collecting oddities extends to the charm necklace he’s wearing today. One of the charms is a heart that says ‘Happy birthday, Anne, 1967’.
‘I have no idea who she is, but I like to think about who she might be,’ he muses. ‘I got it at a vintage market in Philadelphia where we film Servant. As I said, I’m a bit of a collector.’
Rupert admits that separating himself from his Potter persona has been difficult. Pictured, Rupert as Ron with Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter and Emma Watson as Hermione
Indeed, he’s the proud owner of a huge rare elephant bird egg (an extinct species that once roamed Madagascar), an ostrich skeleton that stands in his dining room and several ancient bones. I wouldn’t be surprised if Antiques Roadshow was one of his guilty pleasures.
‘Not guilty at all, I love it,’ he says. ‘I love hearing the stories of the relationships people have with these objects. And I’m into… stuff. Fiona Bruce is really good at presenting it, I don’t know if I could do it any better but I’ve not got a bad knowledge and I can identify bits of ceramic, so I wouldn’t mind having a go.’
Another of Rupert’s quirky acquisitions is an ice-cream van, which he bought after Harry Potter ended because his ambition as a youngster was to be an ice-cream man.
He didn’t have a licence to actually sell his wares though, so he used to give them away. ‘I loved the van,’ he says. ‘It was my first car and I learned to drive in it. It has pictures of 99s on it. Whenever I drove it out it was chaos, with people wanting ice-cream, but it was a great choice of transport.
‘I still think it would be a nice job, but ice-cream men are very territorial. There’s an ice-cream mafia – you get into trouble if you go onto someone else’s patch. My favourites are 99s and raspberry ripple, but I like them all.’
Rupert as Julian with Lauren Ambrose as his sister Dorothy in M Night Shyamalan’s spooky series Servant
Having Ron Weasley serve you a raspberry ripple from his van must have been heavenly for a young muggle, and Rupert admits that separating himself from his Potter persona has been difficult.
But perhaps playing Julian in Servant will finally make people realise that he’s actually Rupert, not Ron – nor even Ed Sheeran. Apparently he’s always being mistaken for the singer.
Once 1970s pop legend Leo Sayer met him at a car rally and insisted on asking him about his latest album. ‘I just played along,’ laughs Rupert. ‘It was easier.’
When we first met more than five years ago, at least a dozen people in the course of an hour called out ‘Ron! Ron! Ron!’ and asked him for selfies as we sat having coffee in a tucked-away street.
Rupert didn’t seem irritated by this, he simply obliged. ‘They have a sense of ownership – they see me and think they know me,’ he says. ‘Being Ron was strange. It’s never quite died down and now a whole new generation is finding Harry Potter.
‘And, of course, Harry Potter still lives on because there’s the theatre play in London, Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, and a themed ride at Universal Studios in LA.
‘I went on it when it first opened and it got stuck! It all takes you right back. I’m very proud to have been part of Harry Potter, but it could be a bit claustrophobic, especially when we’d finished the last one.
‘There wasn’t any real period of adjustment. Suddenly everything was over and it was overwhelming.’
I tell him there’s been a rumour the original cast might reform for another Potter. ‘I don’t think it would happen, but I’d never say never. I’ve a new perspective on those years now.
‘We were in a protected bubble but didn’t really see it. We didn’t really feel that famous. I didn’t hate it but it had its challenges. I did struggle, I think, because I’d naturally merged into the character of Ron. I felt a very strong affiliation with him.’
More so than Daniel or Emma with their characters? ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘But I still feel protective over Ron. When I went to see the stage play in London and someone else was playing him I didn’t feel right.
‘But on another level it was great to see him reimagined.’ Is he still in touch with Emma and Daniel, his closest companions for a decade?
‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen either of them. I see them as family, but more like distant cousins. But it’s great to reunite when we do. It was an intense period. I still see Tom Felton though, who played Draco Malfoy.’
Rupert’s 31 now, as ginger as ever, with naughty twinkling eyes. He doesn’t feel 31, he says, or particularly look it, but because of Harry Potter he has a weird relationship with age, hardly surprising given that it took over his childhood.
He realises he had a bit of an identity crisis when it finished. ‘Yes, I suppose I did. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do anything like that again, or even act again. I was keen to get my freedom back.
‘I had my tonsils removed straight away. I had massive tonsils and I had to get them out. It made me feel like a man – it was good. You can’t speak for a few days and you shouldn’t eat ice-cream, you should eat scratchy things.’
Rupert’s 31 now, as ginger as ever, with naughty twinkling eyes. He doesn’t feel 31, he says, or particularly look it, but because of Harry Potter he has a weird relationship with age
This must have been difficult for ice-cream fan Rupert, especially as the point of having your tonsils removed is surely so you can eat ice-cream for a few days?
‘That’s totally wrong, you’ve got to encourage chewing and swallowing textured food. But I did have ice-cream too.’
As well as a confused relationship with his age, Rupert has an even more confused relationship with money. Some reports say he made £28 million from the Harry Potter franchise, but he has no idea how much he’s worth.
‘That rings a bell, yes, but I couldn’t actually tell you how much. Money is something that happens in the background. I haven’t had an issue with money from a very young age, and that makes it weird. I think I’m thrifty, I like a bargain – but maybe that’s just because I’m getting older.’
I wanted to get my freedom back after Harry Potter
For an actor of his standing he’s shy and blushes easily, but he’s also funny and smart and has managed to remain both grounded and private.
‘I think I have a very normal existence, it’s a malleable level of fame and I enjoy it,’ he says. ‘The Harry Potter films had a deep meaning for people, especially of my generation – they even get Harry Potter tattoos! It’s a real marker of their feeling of nostalgia, and I’ve learned to embrace it.’
Next up he will be returning to Philadelphia to film a second series of Servant, where he’ll doubtless collect more quirky objects and books.
‘I’ve mainly got David Attenborough books… he’s got an elephant bird egg as well, and I’m sure he likes bees, as I do. I’d love to meet him, I think we’d have a lot to talk about.’
Where Sir David stands on the subject of reborn vampire dolls is yet to be recorded.
Servant is available now on Apple TV+. You can watch Apple TV+ via the Apple TV app on Apple devices or Samsung smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV or Roku boxes. The first episode of Servant is free.