Born in Harlow in 1988 and raised in Hertfordshire, Rupert Grint rose to fame after being cast as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film series – the world’s second-highest grossing movie franchise – at the age of 11, alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson. Outside the Potter world, his film roles include Driving Lessons (2006), Wild Target (2010), and Postman Pat (2014). He made his stage debut in Mojo at the Harold Pinter theatre, London, in 2013. He has recently starred in Snatch (2017), a TV adaptation of Guy Ritchie’s film of the same name, and will star alongside Nick Frost in new TV comedy Sick Note, launching on Sky 1 and streaming service Now TV on 7 November.
1 | Play
I’m a huge Jez Butterworth fan – the first play I ever did was one of his. I really enjoyed this one: it’s ambitious, the cast is huge and it’s got so many animals and children in it. Visually, there’s just so much to look at. It’s set in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, with Thatcher in power, and centred on a farming family who were at one point heavily involved with the IRA. It’s a great bit of storytelling and the staging is amazing – it’s all set in one part of the house so you really get a snapshot of the family dynamic. As with a lot of Jez’s stuff, it’s got some very dark twists.
2 | Art
David Shrigley is an artist I’ve always been a follower of. I love his humour; it really connects with me. He does these weird, unsettling cartoons paired with sometimes quite upsetting text. I’ve got two prints of his at home, and a lot of his books. I do a bit of similar art, and I’m quite into crazy cartoons, so he’s a bit of an inspiration. He’s recently done the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, with this big thumbs-up. I’ve never met him, but I quite like the mystery – I don’t really want to know too much about him.
3 | Book
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk
I loved this book. It’s a fictional biography written through the words of people who knew this central character, Buster Casey. At one point he visits this dystopian world where people are split into Daytimers and Nighttimers, so it’s got science-fiction elements to it. I’ve read quite a lot of his stuff, and what I love is that he always manages to find something disturbing in his characters, something you’ve never encountered before. And the way it’s written has a kind of documentary feel about it, so it’s quite cinematic. A lot of his books have that quality – like Fight Club. I’d love to see this one as a film.
4 | Music
I’m not very good at keeping up with the charts – I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider when it comes to that. Recently I’ve been listening to the [hip-hop Broadway musical] Hamilton soundtrack: the music is so clever; lyrically it’s just genius. There’s not a bad song on there – it just flows so well. I saw it earlier this year in New York. I’d been listening to the soundtrack for about a year before that, so I knew what was going to happen, but then seeing it on stage was brilliant. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s as well loved when it comes to the UK [in December], but the music is so good, and [Hamilton composer and actor] Lin-Manuel Miranda is a genius. It was one of the best things I’ve watched.
5 | TV
I watch this religiously. I came to it quite late, but I watched every single series in a very short period of time and was completely taken by it. I didn’t know what the drag world was all about so it was really educational. It’s an art form I think a lot of people should know about and appreciate, because it’s really impressive. I like it when they have to make their own outfits, and I love [drag queen] Sharon Needles, she’s my favourite. It’s really good TV, and I’m constantly trying to get people to watch it. I’ve actually managed to get my dad to watch it.
6 | Website
This is a graphic design competition website. You design T-shirts to a theme, like the 1990s, or puns, and people vote on them. There’s this whole community of designers, and if their design wins it gets made into real products which people can buy on the site. The winners are usually professional graphic designers, but it’s open to everyone. I’ve been designing on there anonymously for a couple of years, under a pseudonym. One of my designs got printed a few months ago – that was big, man. It’s a cool site and a clever concept, a fun way to chat with like-minded artists.
7 | Game
Time Run, London E8
I did this escape room a couple of months ago, and it’s really, really fun. You split into teams and go into different rooms and you have to try to get out. When you go with a group of mates it’s a really good night out, and the set’s incredible. It has a time-travel theme to it: one room is a futuristic spaceship world, one’s an Egyptian land, then there’s Hitler’s office. There are a lot of elements from The Crystal Maze: we were in groups of five, and you have to work together. We didn’t actually escape – we got locked in Hitler’s office right at the end, which was quite distressing. But it was so much fun.
