Rupert is the first son born to Nigel and Jo Grint. His father Nigel Grint sells Formula One (racing) memorabilia, while his mother Jo is a house-wife. Rupert attented Richard Hale Secondary School in Hertfordshire, which was an all-boys school. While in school he took avid interest in school plays and drama activities. As a child, he was once cast as a fish in a play based on the story of Noah’s ark. He had only appeared in plays for school and his local theatre group such as Peter Pan, Belly Dance Costumes and Rumplestiltskin before he landed up with the role of Ronald Weasley.

“I am the biggest “Harry Potter” fan; I even was before I knew there was going to be a film. I read all the books. ”

Rupert was already a big Harry Potter fan, often co-relating himself to Ronald Weasley.

“When I read the books, I imagined that the family of Ron Weasley was my family. After reading the books, I knew the Weasleys inside out.”

It was on Newsround that he first came to know about the auditions for the Harry Potter films. He did his own video, his mum filming him pretending to be his drama teacher who was a girl, and therefore required him to look like a girl and hence adonning a skirt. He then wrote a rap about how much he wanted to be Ron in the film, and sent it off along with a picture of himself. A couple of auditions followed, which comprised of learning the lines of their character, and a screen test. He was with Emma Watson, when they were taken into the Director Chris Columbus’s office who told them that they were going to be in the film.

This was just the beginning for Rupert, as he starred in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) which became a big hit, followed by a completely different role as a madcap professor in Thunderpants (2002). In 2002, 2004 and 2005, he again starred as Ron Weasley in the Potter sequels Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In between shooting the Potter blockbusters, Rupert starred opposite his Potter mum Julie Walters in the more low-key British comedy/drama Driving Lessons. In a very different role, Rupert played an awkward teenager with a ferociously religious and over protective mother(Laura Linney), who lands a job as an assistant to an eccentric actress, fostering a relationship that results in both growing up in the process.The latest in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hits the cinemas July 13th 2007.