A pretty unsuspecting element of Hanna Bergholm’s filmography lured Rupert Grint onto Nightborn.
The British actor has kept a low profile since his career-making turn as the red-haired Ron Weasley in Warner Bros’ Harry Potter films. For a decade, he was a fixture of global cinema; a wand-wielding Gryffindor who became, alongside fellow Hogwarts alums Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, the child star of all child stars. In 2011, as the movie adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s books drew to a spectacular, box office-smashing close, only a minority of people would have been unable to place Grint’s English accent and mischievous smirk.
The 37-year-old has toned things down, though he’s certainly kept the bar high through regular team-ups with M. Night Shyamalan on the likes of TV series Servant and 2023’s Knock at the Cabin. It’s a genre he admits to feeling pretty comfortable in — “I think everything I’ve done since Potter, actually, has been kind of on the horror spectrum,” Grint tells The Hollywood Reporter — but his latest adventure was all about the marionettes.
“I love her use of puppets,” he begins about Bergholm. “I had watched Hatching, the film she did about a little girl who finds an egg.” The puppets, he laughs, “was something that really attracted me to this. Whenever I can be on set with a puppet, it’s quite fun.” He continues: “I worked with a few on Potter. They’re something you don’t really see that often in films anymore — [filmmakers] are very quick to [use] CGI, but it’s so nice to have a physical thing.”
Nightborn
Berlin International Film Festival
The puppet in question is actually the Finnish filmmaker’s newest antagonist. Nightborn (Yön Lapsi), repped by Goodfellas in Berlin, follows Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her British husband Jon (Grint), who move to an isolated house deep in the Finnish forest, where Saga spent much of her childhood. The couple dream of raising the perfect family there, and their excitement skyrockets when they discover a baby’s on the way. When born, however, Saga and Jon’s son is not like other children. As their marriage starts to crack and Jon struggles to support her, only Saga suspects a disturbing truth about their newborn.
Thematically, the movie is ambitious: Finnish folklore, satanism, and postpartum depression are among the meatier subject matters woven into the script. For Grint, it was even a little personal. He’d just found out he and his wife (fellow actress Georgia Groome) were also expecting. “It really taps into being a parent. The fear of the dangers and the baby getting hurt — something being not quite normal. I definitely had it with Wednesday,” he admits about his eldest daughter, born in 2020. “Those first few months can be quite isolating. It’s a terrible feeling when it should be the most amazing thing, but it can be quite traumatizing.”
Bergholm also decides to play with reality a little as the baby, Kuura, slowly hijacks Saga’s sanity. We see him eerily sit up just weeks after being born, bite at his mother’s swollen nipples, and suck her blood. In short, the need for puppeteers swiftly becomes apparent. “It was all practical,” Grint beams. “They had a few different versions. They did have an animatronic one, and obviously different stages of it because the baby grows and metamorphoses in various degrees.”
The initial intrigue of seeing those effects firsthand was soon bolstered by the attraction of playing Jon, who Grint admits is in “a completely different movie” to his wife. And it’s here that his Britishness is no longer just a facet of his personality, but a tool at the thespian’s disposal. “He’s come from a completely different country and moved to Finland to begin this new life where he doesn’t really know anyone,” Grint continues. “He doesn’t speak the language and I think there’s a loneliness to him as well. He is obviously working all the time, so he can’t be home and he’s slowly watching his wife drift away.”
Jon succumbs to a tricky balancing act: His desire to salvage the relationship is soon dwarfed by his belief that the baby at risk. “In his head, he’s doing all the right things,” says Grint about the character’s standpoint. “But from his wife’s perspective, he’s just making it so much worse and further isolating her. It’s quite bleak.”
Nightborn, shot in Lithuania with a Lithuanian crew, does have elements that are “quite whimsical,” and Grint uses the opportunity to laud Bergholm’s native Finland. “It’s really quite a magical place and trolls are a huge part of the mythology there,” he adds, referencing the spirits of the forest that loom large over Jon and Saga’s home. “This idea that nature has a way of getting everything back, it’s quite sinister, but it’s also kind of quite amazing.”
He laughs as he considers the pattern in his work that seems to suggest he’s normally filming “something scary about babies” whenever he and Groome are expecting one. Though his time spent in horror hasn’t entirely been a conscious decision, it’s difficult for him to deny its magnetism. “There’s a lot of room to play when you’re in these horror worlds. The parameters are much larger, you can be a lot bolder. It makes a very creative canvas and you can paint in very broad strokes,” Grint tells THR.
The star ponders over some of his favorite films of the genre to make a splash in recent years. “I actually love this movie — Beau Is Afraid, with Joaquin Phoenix,” he says, acknowledging that he’d love to work with Ari Astor in the near-future. And when Grint declares it would be “nice to do something a little bit lighter,” maybe “a Christmas movie,” THR keenly reminds of his upcoming role as Bob Cratchit in Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol.
In his defence, he’s only done one day on set so far. Ti West’s Charles Dickens adaptation boasts an almighty ensemble including Johnny Depp in the titular role, Andrea Riseborough, Tramell Tillman, Daisy Ridley, and Sam Claflin. “It’s going great,” Grint says about the ongoing shoot. “It’s obviously a story that everyone knows, and there’ve been lots of adaptations in the past, and this just feels very different. It feels very faithful, but it has Ti’s signature on it, and Johnny’s amazing. He’s doing some really interesting things.” Among other highlights for Grint is getting to be on set with Ian McKellen, playing Jacob Marley: “He’s just iconic.”
But before he can resume bro-ing out with McKellen, Grint’s got a Berlinale premiere to attend. Though, he confesses, his seat might be up for grabs shortly after Nightborn starts. “I don’t really love watching things I’m in,” he says.
“It’s a really weird thing where you can’t lose yourself in the story, you’re hyperanalyzing everything you’re doing. I mean, I don’t even look at the monitor when I’m on set. I find it very shocking,” he adds. There are a couple of projects he might be able to manage — “the early Potter, maybe the first one, I could possibly watch” — but Grint just wouldn’t enjoy it. Not even the allure of seeing the puppets in action could persuade him.
“I really should watch it,” he says, before conceding that he’ll likely “duck out” a little earlier than expected. Still, “it is a good fit for Berlin,” he agrees. “It’s definitely one that will stay in my memory for a while.”