Rupert Grint on Servant and Knock At The Cabin – and dealing with real-life scares

In his new film, Rupert Grint plays one of four people who arrive at a remote holiday cabin and insist the family occupying it make an impossible choice – either sacrifice one of their own, or watch as the apocalypse unfolds.

While the plot of Knock At The Cabin, which is based on horror novel The Cabin At The End Of The World, may be extreme, it also plays on real fears faced by many families.

The Harry Potter star told Sky News it was all the more relevant to him as he has faced his own home invasion.

“Definitely becoming a dad, those fears are very real now – actually, I was broken into,” Grint said. “A few years ago, when we just did [TV show] Servant, and I saw the guy in my living room… he didn’t steal anything, but we had this kind of face-off.

“He was wearing my coat that he just stole. It was terrifying, it was absolutely terrifying.”

On hearing the story for the first time during our interview, writer-director M Night Shyamalan said he might not have cast Grint had he known what he’d been through.

“[Being in the film] did bring some quite raw emotions,” Grint said. “But no, I mean, it was a long time ago.”

The actor and Shyamalan, who’s also known for The Sixth Sense and Signs, have been working together for a while now, with the fourth and final series of their TV show Servant recently released.

Grint said having an existing relationship made shooting Knock At The Cabin that bit easier.

“We paused Servant briefly for a few weeks and then kind of made this in the middle of that. So yeah, it all feels very much a kind of big family and I love working with Night, we get on really well and we do have this kind of shorthand. We know what we’re going to get with each other and it’s great.”

Shyamalan also cast actors he had not worked with before for the film, including Dave Bautista.

The former wrestler, who’s known for playing Drax from Guardians Of The Galaxy in the Marvel franchise, has been open about wanting not to be pigeon-holed as an action star.

Shyamalan said this was part of the appeal for him.

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“I love casting against what people are known for and, you know, with Bruce [Willis] and Mel [Gibson] and Dave they were kind of action stars and I’m saying, okay you’re not going to do that in these movies, you’re going to do dramatic, complicated work,” he said.

“And their physicality is an asset because it’s just humming there and I don’t need to actually activate it, it’s there, he’s still 320 pounds or whatever, he’s still that guy.

“But in all those cases, there was a desire and an intricacy of thought that made me very comfortable that they could do these kind of deep-level performances.”

Knock At The Cabin is out in cinemas in the UK now