Summary
- Rupert Grint reflects on his time on Harry Potter, buying merchandise for his daughter and still identifying with Ron Weasley.
- Grint is arachnophobic and found filming with spiders challenging, especially scenes with Aragog.
- The Harry Potter films had to rely on special effects and CGI for the spider scenes due to Grint's fear, and he still has a fear of spiders today.
For the young cast of Harry Potter, the experience was full of truly magical moments. Years later, all of the cast reflect on their experiences fondly, even if some of them are still trying to get away from being pigeonholed into roles. For one, Daniel Radcliffe isn't keen on returning to the franchise at all.
Rupert Grint, on the other hand, waxes nostalgic a fair bit more than his former co-stars. He has bought Harry Potter merchandise for his daughter, still identifies with Ron Weasley today, and has said he would willingly return to the franchise. There's just one thing he doesn't love about Harry Potter, and that's the spiders.
Rupert Grint Revealed Details About His Life And Career With British GQ
After appearing in Knock at the Cabin, Rupert Grint sat down for an interesting interview with British GQ in its "Actually Me" segment. For the uninitiated, the segment features celebs going online to reply to fans' questions. Rupert sat down and read through fan questions, then someone (probably not him) posted those answers in the appropriate place, whether Quora, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, or others.
In the interview, Rupert talked about many different things, from his childhood dream of becoming an ice cream man to how much of a softie Alan Rickman truly was. He also discussed his convincing yet difficult American accent in Servant (the word "baby") was a struggle for the actor.
As will always happen when Rupert Grint's name comes up, many fans had questions about his time on Harry Potter. And as always, Grint was happy to elaborate. Specifically, one commenter pointed out that Rupert had said he was an arachnophobe, so they wondered how he was able to film the scenes with so many spiders in Chamber of Secrets.
Grint Confirmed That He Is Arachnophobic, So How Did He Film Harry Potter?
Rupert Grint admitted that he definitely is an arachnophobe, but with the caveat that the larger spiders didn't necessarily bother him as much. He noted, "Well the giant ones don't have the same effect. It's the kind of little ones that can get in your clothes and kind of crawl all over you."
Still, Rupert didn't have an easy time filming, especially when it came to scenes with Aragog. In other interviews, Rupert has discussed working with the giant animatronic spider on set, noting "when I saw Aragog, it was really scary because he was massive."
Daniel Radcliffe also admitted to staying far away from Aragog because of how creepy the model turned out. It's also, as Rupert said, "massive." The legs are said to stretch out 18 feet, and the spider is so big that a full-grown adult couldn't wrap a hand around one of its legs.
Later, Rupert wound up watching the film during its debut, which Rupert had some thoughts on. He noted, "It really made me feel uneasy. I didn’t like looking at it at all. We saw that scene in the cinema, they kind of added visual effects — all these kind of movie ones of the ground. I still can’t watch that scene. Absolutely terrifying."
Rupert Revealed That His Arachnophobia Changed Filming
Fans know now that the Harry Potter films relied on special effects and CGI, which for their time, were not very advanced. Ultimately, it wasn't feasible to bring in thousands of spiders, specifically to complete the Forbidden Forest scene with Aragog's tons of offspring.
In the end, filming had to change, partly because of Grint's fears. Rupert wasn't entirely thrilled with the film crew's plans at first; they were originally going to use a real spider in a scene with him.
In the British GQ interview, Rupert elaborated that they even did a few tests with a live spider, putting it on his leg. To quote Grint directly, he "had a full on panic attack" and they never did it again.
Thus came the CGI spiders, as well as some large models. It's quite possible that Rupert's acting during those spider scenes was rooted in real-life experiences, but he wasn't truly interacting with any arachnids during filming.
As for how his arachnophobia is faring today, Rupert admitted that after becoming a dad, he can "force" himself to "deal with them." Yet spiders are still "very much one of [his] biggest fears."
He might have gotten over some of his fears of spiders, but when asked by a fan whether he planned to visit the then-new Harry Potter exhibit of the Forbidden Forest at Warner Bros. London, Rupert said he likely wouldn't.
A "The Making of Harry Potter" tour let fans get up close with Aragog and his children in the exhibit, but Rupert had no interest in seeing that in person. However, when chatting to fans about the exhibit, he seemed to not be fully engaged in the conversation, likely because multiple people were talking to him at once.
It's possible that Rupert's feelings about spiders aren't as intense as some fans seem to think, at least not today.
