Rupert Grint Once Thought His Acting Career Could Be Over After ‘Harry Potter’ Ended
Harry Potter star Rupert Grint spent much of his formative years in the wizard franchise Harry Potter. But he was worried he wasn’t a good enough actor to have a career beyond the famous film series.
Rupert Grint once starred in the film ‘Wild Target’ to escape ‘Harry Potter’
Audiences watched Grint grow as both a person and actor in the Harry Potter franchise. His most popular role was the wizard Ron Weasley, who Potter fans knew as Harry Potter’s close friend. After investing so much of his life into the films, he admitted that it felt strange to watch it come to an end.
“It is weird I suppose. I’ve not known any different… it’s the way I’ve grown up. You get used to it. It’s weird – like having a big home movie. If the old films are on TV I’ll glimpse slightly, but I’ve never watched one all the way through,” Grint once told Bang Showbiz (via Contact Music).
However, Grint was a bit concerned about Potter’s future impact on his career. The young actor was conscious of the possibility of being typecast because of the films. One of his solutions to his concerns was doing the 2010 black comedy Wild Target starring Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt. Grint saw Wild Target as the ideal opportunity to branch out from the Potter stories.
“I guess it was one of the reasons I did Wild Target because it was kind of a way out… Harry Potter is coming to an end, it’s the last one, then it’s all done. It’s a weird feeling because we’ve been so long in this bubble and now we have to walk away from it all. It’s important to do different things and stretch out,” Grint said.
Rupert Grint wondered if his career might be over after ‘Harry Potter’
Grint felt a bit of trepidation about continuing acting after his Harry Potter years were over. When his graduation from the franchise was on the horizon, he wondered if his skills were up to par for Hollywood.
“It’s always at the back of my mind that acting might come to an end for me when Harry Potter finishes. I don’t know if I’m good enough to have a long career. I’ve got a bit of an inferiority complex about my acting. My self-esteem is quite low in that sense,” he said in a 2009 interview with Daily Mail.
After the official conclusion of Harry Potter, Grint found himself being able to do things that he couldn’t do before. Without being restricted by the strict schedule of Harry Potter, Grint had more time on his hands than ever before. So much so it felt odd for the star.
“It was this overwhelming sense of freedom…. I could do anything. Weirdly, the first thing I did was have my tonsils removed. And weirdly, it felt like tonsils represented freedom. It became this, like, symbol that I was now kind of free of [the franchise],” Grint recalled to Backstage.
But it was also the partial catalyst of the trepidation that came when the movies ended.
“And it then was also the mindset of: I don’t know what else I can do. Can I only do this one character? Because we’d become so entangled as one thing,” he said.
Rupert Grint had to change the way he acted after doing ‘Harry Potter’
Grint would persevere and go on to build a nice well-rounded career for himself after Harry Potter. Although the process of finding his characters has been different than the process he did to find Ron Weasley. Grint didn’t have the same familiarity with other roles that he had with his Harry Potter character. So this required Grint to change the way he adapted to movie roles.
“Now, going on and playing different characters, it’s very different. For me, it’s always about finding the physicality; that’s always been an important part of it. I always give every character I do a weird, specific walk—not that you’d ever notice it. It’s just a slightly different way of holding yourself. I always find that’s a really good way of grounding you in that character,” he explained.
