Rupert Grint Gets Hero’s Welcome in London for Ebenezer

Some actors spend years trying to shake off the role that made them famous. Rupert Grint never really bothered. He just kept working, kept picking interesting projects, and let the rest take care of itself. On Friday, that approach paid off in the most old-fashioned way possible — a crowd of fans waiting outside a London press event, cheering, just because he showed up.

The 38-year-old actor was in the capital to promote his new film, Ebenezer, and the welcome he got felt like a throwback to the Harry Potter days. Grint, sporting a scruffy beard and dressed down in a black jacket over a maroon sweater, black trousers and a blue baseball cap, stopped to greet the fans who had gathered to see him. No red carpet, no fuss. Just an actor, a crowd, and a movie he’s clearly proud of.

It’s a far cry from the polished, tightly choreographed press tours most stars do these days. And honestly? It suited him. Grint has always been the most low-key of the Harry Potter trio, the one who seems least interested in the celebrity machine. That’s probably why moments like this land so well — when he does step out, people show up.

A Very Different Kind of Christmas Carol

Ebenezer is not your grandmother’s A Christmas Carol. The film is a darker, supernatural reimagining of Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic, directed by horror specialist Ti West — the filmmaker behind X, Pearl and MaXXXine. West’s involvement alone tells you this isn’t going to be the cosy, snow-dusted version you watch every December with a mug of cocoa.

Johnny Depp stars as Ebenezer Scrooge, in what marks his first major wide release since 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. The casting has been talked about since the moment it was announced, and the first footage — Depp buried under heavy prosthetics and age makeup, glowering through the fog of Victorian London — suggests he’s going all in.

Grint plays Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s long-suffering clerk and the beating heart of Dickens’ story. It’s a role that fits him like a glove. Cratchit is decent, warm, quietly stubborn — a man who keeps his dignity in a job that gives him almost nothing back. If anyone can make that feel real rather than saintly, it’s Grint.

The Ensemble Is Seriously Stacked

One of the most striking things about Ebenezer is just how deep the cast goes. Andrea Riseborough plays the Ghost of Christmas Past, Tramell Tillman — who stole scenes all through Severance — is the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Ian McKellen, no less, plays Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s doomed former business partner.

Then there’s Sam Claflin as Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, Daisy Ridley as Emily Cratchit, Arthur Conti as the young Ebenezer, and Ellie Bamber as Isabel Fezziwig. Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Charlie Murphy round out the ensemble. It’s the kind of cast list that makes you do a double take — the sort of lineup that suggests Paramount and producer Emma Watts are treating this as a proper event movie, not a seasonal cash-in.

The film hits cinemas on November 13, just in time for the Christmas season. And the timing is no accident. A dark, ghostly Christmas Carol landing in mid-November gives it a full month to build word of mouth before the holidays — and if the trailers are anything to go by, word of mouth is exactly what this film is going to get.

Ron Weasley, All Grown Up

For a whole generation, Grint will always be Ron Weasley — the freckled, fiercely loyal best friend who carried half the emotional weight of eight Harry Potter films. He was eleven when he was cast, and he grew up in front of the cameras, finishing the series as a young adult with the whole world watching.

What came after was never going to be easy. Child stars either fade or fight to be taken seriously, and Grint chose a third option: he just got on with it. He made his Broadway debut in It’s Only a Play in 2014, took on the crime series Snatch, headlined the dark comedy Sick Note, and then spent four seasons as the wonderfully sardonic Julian Pearce in M. Night Shyamalan’s Apple TV+ thriller Servant.

He popped up in Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin in 2023 and in an episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, and through it all he’s been quietly building a career defined by odd, interesting choices rather than obvious ones. He doesn’t chase franchises. He doesn’t do the social media circus. He picks a project, does the work, and goes home.

That home life, by the way, is something he guards fiercely. Grint has been with actress Georgia Groome — best known for Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging — for years, and the couple welcomed their daughter Wednesday in May 2020. He announced the birth himself, in his own low-key way, with a photo and a joke. It was the most Rupert Grint thing imaginable.

Back to Broadway — and Back to Ron

Here’s the twist nobody saw coming: after years of carefully building a life beyond Hogwarts, Grint is heading back. Over the summer, it was announced that he will reprise the role of Ron Weasley in Broadway’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for a special engagement.

It’s a big deal. Cursed Child picks up nineteen years after the Battle of Hogwarts, with Harry, Ron and Hermione as adults and parents — and Grint stepping into the role on stage, in front of a live audience, is a completely different challenge from the films. No retakes, no editing, no hiding. Just him, the character, and a theatre full of people who grew up with him.

The announcement sent Potter fans into a spin, and understandably so. Of the three leads, Grint has always been the one most associated with Ron’s warmth and humour — the one fans felt was born to play him. Seeing him return to the role, on his own terms, in a different medium, feels less like a step backwards and more like a full-circle moment.

What to Expect on November 13

So what actually is Ebenezer? The official line is simple enough: “This November, Johnny Depp is Ebenezer Scrooge. The name you know, the story you don’t.” The trailers lean hard into the gothic side — fog, candlelight, ghosts that look genuinely unsettling rather than politely spooky.

Ti West’s horror background matters here. The director made his name with slow-burn, atmospheric films that get under your skin, and Dickens’ story is, at its core, a ghost story. A miser haunted by the dead, shown his past, present and future, terrified into changing his life. Strip away the Christmas sentimentality and you’ve got something genuinely eerie — which is exactly the territory West knows best.

Whether the film lands with audiences is another question, but the early signs are promising. The press tour has been energetic — Depp kicked things off with a special screening in New York on November 1, and now Grint is drawing crowds in London. The cast clearly believes in it. And for Grint, a role like Bob Cratchit is a reminder of what he does best: take a character everyone thinks they know, and make him feel like a real person.

Fifteen years after the last Potter film, Rupert Grint is still the actor fans turn out for on a cold London afternoon. Not because he’s chasing the spotlight, but because he never really left their affections in the first place. Ebenezer arrives in cinemas on November 13 — and if Friday’s crowd is anything to go by, plenty of people will be there to see it.

Source: Just Jared