Rupert Grint almost quit acting after Harry Potter

The end of the Harry Potter franchise was a sad time for fans of the hugely successful, eight-film J.K. Rowling adaptation. It was also a tough period for Rupert Grint, who reveals in the new issue of EW that he thought about leaving acting behind after he played Ron Weasley for the last time in 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2.

“We had such an intimate and intense few years in this bubble,” he says. “When I started, [acting] was never something that I aspired to do. I did acting with school plays and stuff like that. But it was never something that I actively dreamed of. I mean, I fell in love with it while I was doing it. But I definitely did think, ‘Is this really what I want to do?’ I wanted to live a little bit. I felt like I’d missed out on a lot. Being in that adult environment from such an early age, it was nice to just be away from it and not have any kind of commitments at all, and just be a bit free.”

These days, Grint is very much back at work. He recently shot two British TV shows — Sick Note, with Nick Frost and Don Johnson, and Snatch, which is inspired by Guy Ritchie’s 2001 film of the same name and premieres on Crackle on March 16. Coincidentally. Ritchie’s film was released in the U.K. just as Grint was starting to film the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. “There’s so many great lines in it,” says the actor. “We probably were quoting it on set.”

For more on Rupert Grint, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday, or buy it here now – and don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive photos and interviews.

Watch the trailer for Snatch, above.