A board game, bee-keeping and pottery help Harry Potter star Rupert Grint beat lockdown blues

Without a magical wand in the real world to make the pandemic vamoose, Rupert Grint is using a range of activities to stay productive and happy.

Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, was working on M Night Shyamalan’s ‘Servant’ series when COVID arrived and forced filming to stop for several months. The 32-year-old returned to his London home and spent time with his partner, the actress Georgia Groome, and their newborn daughter, on Wednesday.

Asked by The New York Times about his cultural must-haves, Grint named a mix of shows, books, a sandwich shop and a podcast. Also on the list were miniature pottery, urban bee-keeping and backgammon.

“We went through a phase of playing like 10 games a day. It really changes the brain,” Grint said about backgammon. “I’ve always loved board games and got a huge collection over the years. Probably about four years ago, Georgia and I got a backgammon board and taught ourselves to play. We take a board everywhere we go now. Everyone’s mad about chess after ‘The Queen’s Gambit’. But backgammon, I think, is an older game, and there’s an element of luck that involves the dice.”

Pottery had a relaxing effect on the actor.

“This has been a lockdown hobby that I’ve taken up,” he said. “You actually throw pots on a proper wheel, which is about the size of a dollar coin. The wheel is something I’ve always been in awe of, just making something from something as raw as a blob of clay. It’s such a therapeutic thing, and you completely get lost in thought. They’re so quick as well. I’ve made some really cool things, like miniature vases, cookie jars, teapots. They’re an inch or a little bigger, kind of a doll’s house scale. They’re all completely useless.”

And then there is bee-keeping, which has allowed Grint to marvel at the almost human level of job delegation and organisation in the bee world.

“I’ve done this for four years now,” Grint said. “It’s not easy, but it’s fascinating. I’m not sure what prompted us to get into it, because I am terrified of being stung. Bees are such an important thing and watching them in this hive is just incredible — how hard they’re working and how each has a different job. There are nurse bees, and undertaker bees that carry out the dead bees like coffin-bearers. It’s insane to watch. I have one hive in our backyard, just in a quiet corner. They keep to themselves. You think you’d be invaded by bees everywhere, but they’re very deliberate. They know exactly where to go to get pollen. It’s a really happy colony. I am in absolute awe of the queen.”