Rupert Grint

Rupert Grint (birthname: Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint) is universally known for his role as the loyal sidekick of Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movie franchise. It was this role that marked Grint’s feature debut, with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), directed by Chris Columbus, and co-starring the perennial Harry Potter cast of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Julie Walters, John Hurt, Robbie Coltrane, and Richard Griffiths, and establishing the franchise’s remarkable box-office success with a $1.02 billion global return.

The subsequent movies in the franchise in which Grint co-starred were: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), directed by Columbus and earning $880 million; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), directed by Alfonso Cuarón, a $797.7 million global gross; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), directed by Mike Newell and earning an $896.7 million worldwide take; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), directed by David Yates and grossing $942 million globally; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), directed by Yates and amassing $934.5 million in the total box office; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 1 (2010), again directed by Yates and earning $977 million worldwide; and the finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2 (2011), directed by Yates and grossing the franchise top return of $1.34 billion.

Rupert Grint’s non-Harry Potter movies began with Thunderpants (2002), with Grint in a supporting role with Simon Callow, Stephen Fry, Paul Giamatti, and Ned Beatty under the direction of Pete Hewitt (who also wrote the story and co-produced), earning a small $3 million box office. Grint’s first co-starring role in a non-Harry Potter movie was writer-director Jeremy Brock’s British comedy-drama, Driving Lessons (2006), with Julie Walters and Laura Linney and grossing a modest $1.3 million.

Grint’s first above-the-title role was in the little-seen U.K. drama, Cherrybomb (2009), followed by Into the White (2012), a WW2-set Swedish-Norwegian co-production directed and co-written by Petter Næss, and earning less than $1 million worldwide. Grint played support opposite Shia LaBeouf, Mads Mikkelsen, Vincent D’Onofrio, Melissa Leo, and Evan Rachel Wood, in the drama, Charlie Countryman (2013), earning a mere $424 thousand box office after Sundance and Berlin film festival premieres.

Another barely-seen movie with Grint in support was producer-director Randall Miller’s rock n’ roll drama, CBGB (2013), making only $40 thousand on a $5 million budget and co-starring Alan Rickman, Malin Akerman, Donal Logue, and Bradley Whitford. Co-starring in his first voice performance animated feature, Postman Pat: The Movie (2014), based on the British stop-motion animated TV series, Grint played opposite Stephen Mangan, Jim Broadbent, and David Tennant, with the 3-D movie grossing $8.6 million.

Even more successful was the other animated 2014 feature, the Argentine-made Metegol (titled Underdogs in the U.S. version and The Unbeatables in the U.K. version), in which Grint led the British version cast including Anthony Head, earning a global take of $34 million. Grint co-starred with Ron Perlman in the poorly received and little-seen U.K. comedy, Moonwalkers (2015), playing off the false conspiracy theory that Stanley Kubrick filmed a fake Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. After a long stint in TV series, Grint did not return to feature film acting until M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin (2023), starring Dave Bautista and Jonathan Groff, and proving to be the most commercially successful movie for Grint since the Harry Potter days.