The ‘Harry Potter’ cast comes of age on set

‘I just need a little bit of normality for a while’
Watson has a hard time recalling the beginning.

“This all happened to me so young,” she says. “It’s very hard to go back to that time and be like, ‘Did I want to do this?’ It feels very foggy — it all feels very blurry.”

Watson has acted in a few other films (a voiceover in 2008’s “The Tale of Despereaux” and the 2007 BBC film “Ballet Shoes”) but she has spent most of her spare time throughout “Potter” — and this is very Hermione-like — studying. This fall, she’ll attend Brown University, says producer David Heyman.

“I would have exploded if I hadn’t had school to ground me and focus me,” says Watson.

She expects to continue acting, but says college felt like the obvious decision.

“The three of us have been working solidly since we were 10 years old,” says Watson. “I just need a little bit of normality for a while, just a little bit of space to work out what I want and who I am — all the usual stuff.”

She plans to study literature and art, but she has also shown interest in fashion. She signed to a modeling agency about two years ago.

“Fashion’s great because you’re able to recreate yourself whenever you want,” Watson says. “Dan had time to go away and do ‘Equus’ on Broadway and break out of ‘Harry Potter’ a bit and I was always studying. So my way of getting casting directors to look at me in a slightly different way was modeling.”

Heyman, who has been with the series from the start, said: “I see their individuality really shine through as actors and as people. But at the same time, I see the same kids who are very much still filled with a sense of wonder and still have a sense of humility and don’t believe the hype.”

‘It was just something that was fun to do’
The bemused Grint — whom “Azkaban” director Alfonso Cuaron once said was the one most likely to become a star — remains clearly grounded, (even if he’s used his earnings to purchase a hovercraft). That playfulness is perhaps an essential quality to Grint, who was never inclined to view acting as a job.

“I don’t think I ever really made the connection of it being a career,” he says. “It was just something that was fun to do. In the early ones, I don’t think I took the acting too seriously. I just read the lines and got on with it. Over the years, you start to take it more seriously with different directors coming in.”

Grint has starred in two films not yet released: “Cherrybomb,” a boozy teen comedy set in Belfast; and “Wild Target,” a film about a retiring hitman that stars Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt.

He says he’s enjoyed the “more adult” roles and feels more comfortable in front of the camera after an awkward adjustment: “This is something I was kind of thrown into,” he says.

Teenage years are typically uncomfortable ones — years that few would want stored on celluloid. Grint compares the “Potter” films to “a really expensive home video.”

“I guess we’ve all kind of grown up,” he says.