Rupert Grint remembers getting a little 'shady' to steal a prop from 'Harry Potter' set
Who wouldn't be tempted to swipe a prop or two from the Wizarding World?
It should come as no surprise that security on the set of Warner Bros.' eight Harry Potter films was tighter than Gringotts Wizaring Bank, but where there's a magical will, there is most definitely a magical way. Recently sitting down with People, actor Rupert Grint (who played the role of Harry's best friend, Ron Weasley) admitted to pilfering a very bizarre object from the multi-billion dollar franchise.
"They were really strict," he said. "The last few days, there was security at the gates literally searching cars. But I did get away with the door number of Harry's house. I had to unscrew it. It was so shady."
That number, of course, is a 4 ... as in Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey — address of the magic-hating Dursley family that took Harry in following the murder of his parents by Lord Voldemort on that fateful Halloween night in 1981. A practical location in Martins Heron was used for exterior filming on Sorcerer's Stone, though it ultimately became more prudent to construct a life-sized replica at the Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden complex for the subsequent installments.
Grint can currently be seen as the dubious Redmond in Knock at the Cabin, the latest mystery-thriller project from writer/director M. Night Shymalan (this is their second collaboration after Apple TV+'s Servant).
"It combined two of my biggest nightmares: home invasion and the apocalypse," Grint explains in a behind-the-scenes interview provided by Universal Pictures. "It stayed with me a long time because I think it forces you to put yourself in the situation and think, 'What would you do?' It's just deeply distributing and such a fever pitch of conflict ... and all confined in this one space."
He continued: "What we're seeing from [Shyamalan] now is some really bold storytelling. He kind of expects absolute perfection and it's brilliant because you can never really sit back and relax, even if you're in a scene and you're just [sitting] in a chair in the background. He can see you and you have to be in it. I find it quite a thrilling way to work."
Click here to purchase tickets for Knock, and click here to read our interview with the award-winning author whose 2018 novel inspired the movie, which co-stars Dave Bautista, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, and Kristen Cui.
Want to relive the magic of Grint's Wizarding World performance? Head over to Peacock for all eight Harry Potter movies.