Rupert Grint Reveals What He Told New ‘Harry Potter’ Series Actor Playing Ron Weasley

Rupert Grint has given his blessing to Alastair Stout as he inherits the role of Ron Weasley.

The young British actor was cast as Ron in the new HBO Harry Potter series in May, alongside Dominic McLaughlin as Harry and Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, and Grint, 37, reached out to wish him the best.

“I wrote him a letter, before they started [filming], passing the baton, as it were,” the actor told BBC News, as he called the new series, which will adapt each of J.K. Rowling’s seven books into its own season of TV, “really exciting.”

“I’m really intrigued [about] what it’s going to be like. It’s quite strange, having it — the cycle happen again,” he said. “I had so much fun stepping into this world, and I hope he has the same experience.”

Grint said that he “can’t remember exactly” what he wrote in his letter to Stout, but it was “something to that effect,” as he added, “I’m really happy for him.”

When Tout, McLaughlin and Stanton were cast in May, Grint said that the news “took me straight back…[to] when we first got the parts.”

“It was a big thing. I still remember every second of it,” he said of the moment his life, and Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson’s, changed forever. “It’s a big moment, and I just want him to enjoy it.”

Grint was also asked if he thinks Stout looks like him, to which he told the outlet, “There’s a bit of family resemblance.”

Alongside Stout, several other members of the Weasley family have been cast, including Katherine Parkinson as Mrs. Weasley, Tristan and Gabriel Harland as twins Fred and George, Ruari Spooner as Percy and Gracie Cochrane as Ginny.

“But I think it’s great that it’s a whole new thing,” Grint added of the series. “It’s going to be its own thing, and I think that will be fun.”

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Radcliffe, 36, recently shared that he, too, has reached out to the actor who has inherited his beloved role. “I know a few people who are working on the production, so I wrote to Dominic, and I sent him a letter, and he sent me a very sweet note back,” the actor shared on Good Morning America of 11-year-old McLaughlin.

“I just wanted to write to him to say, ‘I hope you have the best time, and an even better time than I did — I had a great time, but I hope you have an even better time,'” Radcliffe recalled of the note. “And I do, I just see these pictures of him and the other kids, and I just want to hug them.”

Filming began on the series in July, and Radcliffe said that seeing Stout, McLaughlin and Stanton on set made him look back on his own experiences differently.

“They just seem so young. I just look at them and say, ‘Oh, it’s crazy I was doing that,’ ” said Radcliffe, who was also 11 when he was cast as the titular role in 2000. “But it’s also incredibly sweet, and I hope they’re having a great time.”

The Harry Potter series is slated to premiere on HBO in 2027.