It seems a long time ago that Rupert was another young hopeful, picked from the thousands upon thousands of auditionees who so desperately wanted to be cast as Ron Weasley, the red-headed and loyal best friend of Harry Potter.

Rupert says of the auditioning process for the Philosopher’s Stone film: “I found out that you could audition by sending a picture of yourself and some information to Newsround. I did my own video with me, first of all, pretending to be my drama teacher who unfortunately was a girl and then I did a rap of how I wanted to be Ron and then I made my own script thing up and sent it off.”

Rupert displayed the characteristics of Ron perfectly, and his genuine love for the Harry Potter series, as well as an eagerness to be a part of the magic must have shone through, making him the obvious choice for the part of Ron. Of course, it must have helped that he also fitted the general look of the character!

Becoming Rupert
Rupert was born on 24th August 1988, the first son of Nigel and Jo Grint. The first of five children, Rupert has one brother and three sisters. His brother James was born when Rupert was a year old, Georgina and Samantha were born in 1993 and 1996 respectively, and lastly is Charlotte, who was born in 1999.

Rupert grew up in Hertfordshire, an English county to the north of London. After successfully auditioning for the Harry Potter film, Philosopher’s Stone, Rupert started at Richard Hale Secondary School in his home town. He took an active interest in school plays and drama activities, being cast as Rumplestilskin in a play about the Grimm brother’s fairytales.

As Rupert was needed more and more on set for the Harry Potter films, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban, it was required that he was tutored on set to keep up with educational needs. He has recently taken his GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exams during the summer of 2004.

The Legacy of Ron
Landing the role of Ron was a dream come true for Rupert. When he began to act on the Philosopher’s Stone movie, he was overcome by the grandness of the sets, describing how he felt as:

“Walking into the Great Hall for the first time was absolutely incredible - all these effects with all the candles floating in the air, all lit and everything, food on the table, all the flambeaus were lit - it was just incredible, it was the most amazing thing I`ve ever seen in my life.”

It was a huge opportunity for Rupert having his first professional acting job on, what was then, one of the most anticipated films of the year. Fans of the Harry Potter books were expecting an accurate on screen presentation of how they imagined the books to be. When asked about this in an interview Rupert commented, “ I am a really big Harry Potter fan and I`ve seen all the sets, I`ve lived Harry Potter and I don`t think it`s destroyed the books at all, I think it`s really spot on.”

Rupert didn’t seem too phased at all amidst all the publicity which surrounded the first Harry Potter movie. The weirdest thing, according to Rupert, would be that, “people are going to actually know my name, that`s going to be strange.”

Being only 13 when the first movie was released must have made the whole experience slightly surreal for Rupert, yet he seemed only too keen to make the second installment of the film series.

The Second Act Begins
When Chamber of Secrets started filming in 2001-2002,

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