The Wizarding World of Harry Potter has entertained the public for decades now, starting with J.K. Rowling’s novels, and expanding to movies, video games, and theme parks. The eight-film Harry Potter movie franchise has remained a vital part of pop culture, with the cast still closely associated with their signature characters. That includes Ron Weasley himself, Rupert Grint, who confirmed a totally on-brand story about him, Emma Watson, and Daniel Radcliffe. Because sometimes life imitates art.
Moviegoers watched the trio of leading Harry Potter actors grow up before our eyes, as they starred in eight movies across a decade of time. And while they’ve all gone on to great things in their adulthood, they’re often fielding questions about their time at Hogwarts. Rupert Grint recently appeared on British GQ, where he answered questions about him from the internet. One is a viral story about the set of The Prisoner of Azkaban, where director Alfonso Cuarón asked the trio to write an essay about their character. In the story Emma Watson wrote 16 pages, Daniel Radcliffe wrote one paragraph, and Grint failed to turn in anything at all. The Servant actor responded honestly about this claim, saying:
Yeah, that’s true. I have to say I was doing my GCSE’s, I was doing like important exams at the time. And also it’s a very kind of Ron thing to do. So, I didn’t do it.
Well, there you have it. It looks like Rupert Grint did indeed blow off an assignment from director Alfonso Cuarón while working on Harry Potter 3. Although the 34 year-old actor has a few reasons why he decided to skip out. Still, it really is funny to see how close he and his co-stars really were to their Wizarding World characters at the time.
Rupert Grint’s comments to GQ come as he’s promoting his role in M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller Knock at the Cabin. But as his press tours are wont to do, eventually the conversation (unsurprisingly) turned to Harry Potter. While he, Watson, and Radcliffe were starring in a global film franchise, they were still just kids. And sometimes kids skip out on their homework, especially when dealing with other stressors.
Later in that same video, Rupert Grint went on to share why Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was such a major change for the franchise. He gives Alfonso Cuarón the credit for bringing in a more adult feeling to the Wizarding World, and for digging deeper into the universe as a whole. As he put it,
It was a big change when Alfonso came in. Everything kind of felt like we should be taking it more seriously. He changed a lot. He changed the design of the wands, I remember that. Everything was kind of darker and a bit more kind of natural. He wanted to kind of dig deep into the characters and he gave us this homework.
He’s not wrong. Harry Potter 3 saw the students of Hogwarts looking more disheveled, and even wearing muggle clothes. Each character got a custom wand design, and Alfonso seemingly put in a big effort with the young cast at the time... even if Rupert Grint sometimes went full on Ron Weasley and didn’t always do his homework. You can watch Rupert Grint answering the internet’s questions about him below, courtesy of British GQ.
Rupert Grint was recently able to reunite with the rest of his magical co-stars thanks to the streaming event Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts. Fans are also wondering if they might once again join forces to adapt the Cursed Child plays for film, but there’s currently no plans for that to come to fruition. In the meantime, the leading trio is definitely keeping busy.
Knock at the Cabin will hit theaters on February 3rd. Rupert Grint is also starring in Servant on Apple TV+, which is airing its final season now. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.
