Rupert Grint

Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Rupert Grint has, like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, been starring in Harry Potter films since 2001. Like his character Ron, over the years he's been come to be known as the slacker of the trio. A few years ago, during press for the third film, director Alfonso Cuaron said jokingly, "Rupert is not with us. He is in a happier place, called Rupertland. He's a little like Chauncey Gardiner from Being There. Is he a genius...or is he a fool'"

Well, he's still doing Harry Potter films and is presumably raking in millions of dollars (er, pounds), so I would be inclined to go with the former. Grint is back along with the whole gang this summer with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the adaptation of the fifth Potter book.

I'm quick to discover he's also the most softspoken member of the Harry Potter trio, at least to the press. One imagines that in his element with his friends, he can be quite talkative, and occasionally during the interview he drops hints that he actually has a hilariously dry sense of humor. When asked what their biggest indulgences were from their Potter paychecks, neither Radcliffe nor Watson could muster up an entertaining answer. But Grint' "Recently I've gotten an ice cream van. So that's been really good."

This time around also marks the fourth director of the series, David Yates, who mainly has built a career heretofore as a TV director. Things apparently worked out well enough; he'll be back to direct the sixth movie. "And all the directors we've had have been always quite different," Grint says, "so it's always been really exciting to meet the new ones. We've had some pretty good ones. We've been lucky."

Grint looks back at his experiences on the Harry Potter sets with...foggy memories. But also happy ones. "To me it's really weird, sort of looking back at all the films, it just seems like one long, big film. It's weird looking back on the early ones, how young we were, and how much we've changed now. I've really enjoyed it, and it's been a really good part of my life."

So good that he doesn't quite know how he'll feel about Ron's fate -- whatever it may be -- in the seventh book, out on July 21st. Like the other kids, he says he'd like some definitive closure. Just not that definitive. "I think I want to sort of survive," he admits. "I don't know, there's a lot of rumors going around. I don't know what's going to happen, so I look forward to seeing what the outcome is."

For now, he's taking it one day at a time and enjoying his time on set. Like any self-respecting 18-year-old, one of his favorite parts were the stunts. "I really like doing those things, they're really good fun, and it was good doing those things, sort of like a really good atmosphere on set, and we got to do loads of stunts. I got pulled back on a wire, because me and Hermione have a duel.

"There were loads of scenes that were really fun," he continues. "The funnest one to do and then watch back was the Hall of Prophecies, because that was like, there was nothing there, there was no set at all, it was all green screen, nothing. And then looking back, watching it [with the effects], it was really weird." He hesitates and realizes people are waiting to see if he'll say more. "...And that was really cool," he finishes.

As for the future, Grint sounds just about as aimless as someone can when he's locked into two more blockbuster movies and starred in an indie, Driving Lessons, last year. "I haven't really given [my career] much thought, to be honest. But I definitely want to continue acting. And I don't know, just see what goes from there, really. If it doesn't work out, I've still got the ice cream van." Ah, he came up with a better closing sentence that time.