Rupert Grint found ‘Harry Potter’ role ‘quite suffocating’

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

Rupert Grint found fame as a teen playing Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter franchise, but it wasn’t always easy.

“‘Potter’ was so full on — [filming] all year, then we’d promote the rest of the time,” the now 34-year-old actor said in a recently published interview with Bustle. “It was quite suffocating.”

These days Grint is enjoying a bit of an acclaimed second act with roles in M. Night Shyamalan’s Apple+ series “Servant” and another Shyamalan project, the feature film “Knock at the Cabin.”

Grint told Bustle that initially he wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue acting after “Potter.”

“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,” he said. “If we continued, it could’ve gone downhill.”

He was 11 and acting in British theater when he got the role of Ron and 22 by the time the franchise ended.

Grint had so many similarities with the character of Ron, including same first initial and both being redheads, that he found it difficult to maintain separation.

“I was feeling the difficulty of being seen, being overshadowed,” he said.

“In the movies, we merged into one,” Grint told the publication. “By the end of it, I was playing myself. The lines were blurred.”

Still, he is grateful for the role and described being part of the “Potter” experience with fellow Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson “a really unique experience only us core group really know.”

“I answer to it, if someone calls me Ron,” Grint said. “It’s my second name.”

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