Understanding 4 Great Rupert Grint Performances Outside Of Harry Potter, & 1 Is A Deeply Unsettling Psychological Horror Series

For most viewers, Rupert Grint is still Ron Weasley, and that’s not exactly a surprise, since he spent a decade playing the character across eight Harry Potter movies, and the franchise is still one of the biggest references in his career. However, take a look at his entire filmography today, and you’ll find an actor who made some very different choices afterward, taking on independent films, comedies, thrillers, and especially projects that gave him the chance to explore characters much more complex than the wizard. Some of these roles are better known than others, but several of them show a side of Grint that not everybody really got the chance to see.

Throughout his career, the actor seems to have preferred smaller projects and characters that allowed him to explore less obvious sides of his acting, which is definitely a good thing. Of course, not all of them are classics or all that well-known, but some of these performances ended up being much better than you might expect. Here are 4 of them.

4) Knock at the Cabin

Knock at the Cabin doesn’t give Grint much room to work with, since in this film, he’s almost just a supporting appearance. But on the other hand, that’s why he belongs on this list — the actor makes the most of it. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the film has him playing Redmond, one of four strangers who break into a cabin where a couple is vacationing with their daughter and tell the family they need to make a sacrifice to prevent the apocalypse. And his character is the most aggressive and unpredictable one in the entire group, which allows the actor to lean into the discomfort as much as possible, even before you understand who he really is. And the biggest strength of the performance is that he doesn’t turn Redmond into a brute just because of that.

There’s still an insecurity underneath the character’s hostile attitude, especially once the movie starts revealing more about his past. And from there, naturally, everything gets more interesting, because Grint has to sell that change quickly, since Redmond doesn’t remain at the center of the story for very long. So, in short, it’s a small performance, but one that was highly praised by critics, on top of being completely opposite to what everyone knows him for as Ron in Harry Potter. In Knock at the Cabin, his role is genuinely unpleasant, and his performance matches it — which is quite the compliment.

3) Driving Lessons

This is one of Grint’s first attempts to distance himself from the image of Ron, interestingly enough, while he was still playing the character in the franchise. Driving Lessons received some mixed reviews overall, but when it comes to his performance, there’s definitely plenty to take positively from it. The story follows Ben (Grint), a shy teenager raised by an extremely controlling mother, who gets a job as an assistant to Evie Walton (Julie Walters), a retired and eccentric actress. And when she turns the kid into her improvised driver, the two end up forming a relationship that forces Ben to step outside the sheltered world he’s used to. And well, the actor doesn’t really need to do anything flashy to make the protagonist work.

Grint’s role, in fact, depends on his ability to convey just how insecure, lost, and unprepared the kid is for the world outside his home. It’s a more restrained performance than what people were used to seeing from him, and he makes for the perfect counterpoint to Evie’s much more extravagant personality. It’s true that not everyone was completely convinced by his acting, but there was praise for his chemistry with Walters (which is pretty cool to see considering that both of them play mother and son in the fantasy franchise). Driving Lessons isn’t his most technically impressive work, but it’s a role that clearly shows Grint had potential for what would come next.

2) Cherrybomb

You know that film that isn’t really that good, but has one actor who manages to shine anyway? That’s the case with Cherrybomb. If Driving Lessons was a first attempt to show a new side of Grint, this was a much more direct step in that direction. In this story, he plays Malachy, a Belfast teenager who spends the summer with his best friend, Luke (Robert Sheehan), and the troubled Michelle (Kimberley Nixon), and what starts out as typical teenage fun soon involves drugs, alcohol, sex, theft, and some decisions that are difficult to take back. Okay, so you might expect him to be a naturally rebellious character, but he’s actually always trying to keep up with the others and prove that he can be just as daring, until he manages to do exactly that.

Yes, Malachy’s insecurity is a factor here, which doesn’t seem to bring anything particularly new to what we already knew about the actor at that point, but once his friendship, attraction to Michelle, and need to impress her start getting mixed together, Grint manages to show a teenager making terrible choices without turning him into a stereotype of a troubled young man — and that’s where his ability as an actor is convincing. In Cherrybomb, he’s playing someone who can be selfish, jealous, and irresponsible, while still feeling like a real person. Among all the reviews the movie received, Grint’s performance was one of the things many people defended (especially his ability to pull off the Belfast accent). It’s a performance that’s surprisingly easy to appreciate.

1) Servant

So far, it’s extremely difficult to find a role that better shows just how good Grint is as an actor than Servant. This is a psychological horror series (also directed by Shyamalan), in which the actor plays Julian Pearce, Dorothy’s (Lauren Ambrose) brother, a woman who, after losing a newborn son, starts treating a reborn doll as if it were a real child. Then, a mysterious nanny arrives at the house, making an already disturbing situation even stranger. The actor’s character is initially sarcastic, cynical, and not willing to take anything seriously, but little by little, he starts showing that there’s a considerable amount of trouble behind his jokes and carefree attitude — that’s what makes the performance so magnificent.

Julian is a character who can be funny in one scene, but completely inappropriate in the next, and when the show starts exploring his problems more directly, you don’t want to stop watching. What Grint does here is show that his character is more than the family’s “funny brother,” because as Servant becomes more unnerving, he gets more deeply involved in the secrets of the house, and the actor increasingly follows that escalation without ever letting go of the sarcastic personality that also makes him so interesting. It’s one of his most acclaimed performances to date (if not the most), and for good reason. Maybe because it’s a series, it’s easier to analyze how masterfully Grint builds Julian’s complexity. It’s a total evolution for anyone who’s followed him since Harry Potter, for sure.