As part of its 2009 hot list, Rolling Stone has dubbed Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, its hot sidekick of the year. Grint, who just turned 21, has spent nearly half his life on the Potter movie sets. Looking back on the experience, Grint still has trouble getting a handle on everything he's done:
It has been really weird. I feel like I've completely changed really quickly. I was going to a regular school, and then suddenly I did this audition on a whim and then -- well, it just sort of happened.
All grown up now, he does get to dabble in some (at times magically induced) romance in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but it isn't just Grint's role as Harry Potter's sidekick that has captured the magazine's attention. In the critically acclaimed indie coming-of-age drama Cherrybomb, he gets to play a liar, a thief, and, as Rolling Stone delicately puts it, "the badass who beds the girl." Although the movie is still in search of a distributor, his legions of fans remain determined to make sure audiences get to see exactly how hot this sidekick can be.