Warner Bros. Pictures
- Rupert Grint said that making "Harry Potter" could feel "suffocating" over the 10 year period.
- Grint said he loved growing up on the sets with the same people, but also longed for a change.
- He can't bring himself to rewatch the movies, although he did watch the first one again recently.
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Ron Weasley actor Rupert Grint said that there were times while making "Harry Potter" where it felt "suffocating" as he was working with the same people on the same sets for 10 years.
Grint appeared on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast and spoke to the host about his role as Ron in the "Harry Potter" movie series, which lasted from 2001 to 2011. That's a long time on one project, Grint posited.
"There was a time where it felt quite suffocating, because it was heavy going, because it was every day for 10 years in the end," Grint said.
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Grint reassured the host that his time on the movies was "a great experience" and said the sets had a "family atmosphere," which was only amplified by the fact that the same crew worked on all the movies. Growing up on these sets, Grint said, was a great place to be although sometimes he longed for a change amidst so much consistency.
"Sometimes it definitely felt like, 'I want to do something else. See what else is out there,'" Grint said. "It just never ended. Every year, we came back. And it was kind of like 'Groundhog Day' because it was the same sets. It was the same people. But it was great. I loved it."
However, one thing Grint said he doesn't love is rewatching his work in the movies. Grint said "it still feels too soon" to rewatch all of the films, although he did recently watch "The Sorcerer's Stone" again for only the second time.
"It still feels too soon really. I can't detach myself fully. I can't face it," Grint said. The "Servant" actor previously said that he stopped watching the movies after the third one, "The Prisoner of Azkaban." He plans to watch them all with his daughter, Wednesday, one day but, for now, he is not ready to go there just yet.
"It wasn't like it was a bad experience. It made me so conscious of my face of, like, what I'm doing... I like being in the moment and creating it and then just leaving it," Grint said.
Conversely, fellow "Potter" alumni Tom Felton has been watching the first movie quite merrily via livestreams on his Instagram.
In one viewing, the Draco Malfoy actor pointed out that his real-life grandpa is actually in a scene in the first movie.