Rupert Grint returns as Ron Weasley — 16 years after the final ‘Harry Potter’ film

Rupert Grint is preparing to step back into one of the most famous roles of his career, but his return to Ron Weasley will come with a major difference: this time, he will play the beloved Harry Potter character on Broadway.

Grint, who portrayed Ron throughout all eight Harry Potter films between 2001 and 2011, will join the cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at Broadway's Lyric Theatre for a limited run beginning February 2, 2027. He is scheduled to remain with the production through May 30.

The casting brings one of the original stars of the Harry Potter film franchise into the stage world of the Wizarding World and marks another major crossover between the blockbuster movies and the long-running Broadway production.

Ron Weasley comes full circle for Rupert Grint

Grint was just 11 years old when he first took on the role of Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Over the next decade, audiences watched him grow up alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson as the film series became one of the biggest franchises in cinema history.

Now, more than 15 years after the release of the final film, Grint is returning to the character at a very different point in his own life.

In a statement announcing his Broadway casting, Grint described Ron as a character who has remained closely connected to him since childhood. He also pointed to an unexpected parallel between his own life and that of the character he will now portray: both are fathers.

That connection gives Grint's return an especially personal dimension. He will not be playing the teenage Ron audiences remember from the original films, but an older version of the character who is navigating family life and parenthood.

What happens in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?

The Broadway play takes place 19 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Harry Potter is now an adult, married to Ginny Weasley, while Ron has married Hermione Granger. The characters who once faced Voldemort as students are now parents raising children of their own.

But the Wizarding World is not free from danger.

The story follows the next generation as the children of Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco Malfoy become caught up in events that once again threaten to disrupt the lives of the famous wizarding families.

Ron, meanwhile, has moved on from his Hogwarts years and runs the family joke business, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

Grint's casting therefore offers audiences the unusual opportunity to see an actor from the original film trio return to his character decades later while playing a version of Ron who has also grown older.

The second Harry Potter film star to join the Broadway cast

Grint's arrival follows another significant moment for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, previously joined the stage production, becoming the first major cast member from the original movie series to reprise his role in the Broadway show.

Felton's appearance generated considerable interest among fans and helped boost the production's box-office performance.

Grint's casting is likely to produce a similar surge of attention. Unlike Felton's Draco, however, Ron Weasley was one of the three central characters throughout the original film series, making Grint's return particularly significant for longtime fans.

Producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender described the casting as a connection between the story audiences first encountered in the Harry Potter films and the later themes explored in Cursed Child, including family, legacy and the passage of time.

Rupert Grint is no stranger to the stage

Although Grint is best known worldwide for his work on screen, his upcoming Broadway appearance will not be his first experience in theatre.

He previously made his Broadway debut in It's Only a Play, appearing alongside Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. Grint also performed in London's West End in Jez Butterworth's Mojo, sharing the stage with Ben Whishaw.

Those earlier theatre roles mean his return to Broadway will combine two familiar parts of his career: live performance and the character that first made him internationally famous.

Still, playing Ron Weasley again will be something different.

For Grint, the role represents a return to a character he first inhabited as a child. For audiences, it offers the chance to see the original Ron Weasley step into a story set almost two decades after the events that brought the Harry Potter saga to a close.

When Grint begins performances in February 2027, the Broadway production will turn that passage of time into part of the experience itself — with the actor and the character both returning as fathers, older and changed, but still unmistakably connected to the Wizarding World that made them famous.