Rupert Grint: “Ron Weasley Has Become Imprinted on Me”
To be frank, it’s clear that our Potter stars are never going to get away from their Potter days. At least they accept it. In a new interview promoting his upcoming comedy series, Sick Note, Rupert Grint talks about how he has accepted that Potter will always be a part of him and that all he wants is to do interesting work, with good characters and writing.
There was that kind of pressure, yes, but I don’t think I ever made a really conscious decision to seek out stuff that was particularly shocking. It was never as contrived as that; it just happened. I definitely wanted to do theatre, because it’s quite a different technique.
All I wanted to do was work that was character-driven and had good writing. The Harry Potter movies and books are so well loved by successive generations that they’re always going to be with me. The challenge is breaking that gently now and again and doing different things.
Rupert is promoting the first season of Sick Note (the second has already been commissioned) and is keen to talk about the dark and unusual subject matter (the show is about Daniel Glass, played by Rupert, who has been misdiagnosed by an incompetent doctor but as a compulsive liar, keeps the lie going).
It’s quite a brave subject for a comedy. It’s dark and has a fresh feeling about it. I loved the idea of how a lie can spin completely out of control, become an impossible thing to keep up, and how so many different characters become entangled in it.
Rupert also talks about how unusual the Potter setup was and how he has adjusted to post-Potter life and work.
Oh, yes, it does, of course. Things like Sick Note and the other work I’ve done that hasn’t been Harry Potter is like being in the real world. Potter was a very unusual process, an established family where every year it became very routine. Playing the same character, you knew what you were doing all of the time, and you got to know that character inside out.
It’s such a challenge when you go on to do something else. Also, you have to realise that Harry Potter was such a huge part of my growing up, so much so that Ron Weasley has become kind of imprinted on me. It’s actually very hard for me to find out where Ron ends and where I begin. Because of that, it’s difficult to completely get into the head of a new character.
In a way, Rupert admits, he can relate to his character’s struggle to grow up.
To have been involved in Harry Potter’s adult environment at such a young age – that was a strange period of my life. I don’t have the same independence as a normal 29-year-old would have, and that’s always made me feel slightly younger than I am. In that sense, I can relate to Daniel Glass’s character – he struggles with growing up and facing responsibility.
You can read the full interview with Rupert here and watch a trailer for the show below.
Sick Note airs on Sky1 and NowTV this November.
Are you looking forward to watching the show?