Rupert Grint 'Driving Lessons'

Rupert Grint met an old friend during the shooting of his film 'Driving Lessons'. It was actress Julie Walters who plays Ron's mother, Mrs. Weasley, in the Harry Potter saga. In this film, which will hit theatres in spring 2006, Rupert plays a shy teenager named Ben who gets totally suffocated by his dominant mother (played by Laura Linney, who can be seen in 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose') and all attemts to elude her fail until he meets Evie (Julie Walters), a former actress. Ben's suffering from the strict education of his father, who's a vicar in London and his dominant mother. He's suffocating in the religious family atmosphere, in which prohibitions rule everyday life. When his mother forces him to take part in a play that's organised by the parish, he's angry because he has to play an eucalyptus tree and his classmates are laughing at him.

Things change when the former actress starts to interfere the staging of the play. She's sorry for Ben, who looks bizarre in his costume, and doesn't mince matters to tell off the parish council. Afterwards she goes on the run with Ben to the far away Scotland in her old car. Evie gives Ben driving lessons and teaches him about life and freedom.

Rupert Grint Interview

Just like Ron Rupert Grint is counted among the more relaxed people. At the age of 17 the young actor, who stands by his laziness, has left school to consegrate himself wholeheartedly to his acting career, which is of course highly appreciated by his numerous fans. More here.

Five years have passed in the meantime since you started to play Ron. Do you think you've made big progresses as an actor?

It's difficult for me to answer a question like this but I do hope that I made any progresses. Don't you think so? [laughs] I think that especially my method of working has changed. At the beginning, in the first film, I acted all instinctively, learned my lines off by heart and kicked off without asking myself any questions. Today I try to understand Ron's affections in every scene so that his feelings are expressed by my interpretation.Let's say that I aproach the whole thing with a bit more sense without exaggerating it, of course.

What did you do during the shooting of 'Goblet of Fire' in your free time?

Unlike many other actors I didn't have to spend my time on catching up with missed school lessons because I've already left school to consegrate myself completely to acting so I could take real breaks, which was really cool. During the shooting I've spend pretty much time with the Phelps-twins, with whom I shared two of my main activities. The first one was to built a remote-controlled plane. Unfortunately it's never been flying, since we probably forgot one important element during the construction..... The second was a short trick film with Lego bricks. We disarranged our miniature constructions picture by picture. That was really funny. Although I don't think that our work will be on top of the box-office some day! [laughs]

The shooting of 'The Order of the Phoenix' will start in a few weeks. Are you already all impatient or would you rather take a longer break?

Have you gone mad? I'm all crazy about starting with 'Order of the Phoenix'. A new film is a bit like a new school year, because you finally see all your classmates again. But unlike in school there aren't any boring classes and everything we do is just awesome. I'm really curious about it, especially since Ron will have his Quidditch-debut in this film, so I will have lots of fun during the shooting.

What was, on a technical respect, the most uncomfortable moment during the shooting of 'Goblet of Fire'?

With respect to the acting the Yule Ball was without a doubt the scene, which was the most difficult to shoot. For me it was the day when the technicians came to make a plaster cast of our faces. They needed these to make life-sized dummies to put them on the grounds of the Black Lake during the shooting of the second task. I had plaster everywhere even in my nostrils so that I couldn't breath properly anymore. That didn't take much longer than 10 minutes but to me it felt like hours. The result at the end was however absolutely amazing. When I saw the Ron-dummy lying on the ground, it looked frightening real……

In 'Goblet of Fire' the relationship between Ron and Hermione gets more and more ambiguous. How were the scenes in which Ron's obviously jealous of Viktor Krum?

That was very funny. We had problems to remain serious, because in real life a situation like this would never be possible between Emma and me. So the whole thing was just very unreal which made us laugh all the time.

In this fourth film the relationships between the female and male sex are in the foreground of the story. Did you enjoy that or had you rather abandoned this?

It's not easy for a director to set priorities when you're creating a screen version of a book. Altogether I think that Mike Newell's really done a great job and did cover the key moments of the book of J.K. Rowling. And the relationship between the genders is without a doubt one of the most important issues of this fourth volume. Harry and his friends grow older and become real teenagers with everything that this involves where emotions are concerned. It hadn't been normal had they continued to act like children who aren't interested in the opposite sex. Even wizards have problems during puberty! [laughs]

Bereavement

Rupert Grint couldn't enjoy the immense success of 'Goblet of Fire' to the fullest. During the promotion the family of the young actor was hit by a bereavement. When he wanted to go to a press conference in Japan with the other actors he learned about the death of his grandfather. Very shocked he cancelled the journey as well as his appearance in several TV shows immediately to spend this difficult time with his family. 'I really liked him a lot, also he was a real Harry Potter fan', he explained afterwards. 'I'm really happy that he could see the latest film….'

[ONE Magazine || Feb - March 2006 || Original scans in German can be found here, here and here]