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The Vulture TV Podcast: This Is Us, Rupert Grint, and Mortality

This Is Us aired its season-one finale last week, and on this week’s Vulture TV Podcast, we discuss what has made it different from shows it’s spiritually aligned with, like Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, and what we hope to see in season two. Then, Gazelle is joined by Rupert Grint, former Harry Potter star, to talk about his new Crackle series Snatch, why it’s hard to separate where Ron ends and he begins, and his disappointing Sorting Hat results. Plus, Matt Zoller Seitz recalls watching Grint act as a child, and how watching him grow up is making him feel about his mortality:

Matt Zoller Seitz on watching Rupert Grint grow up:

I think it’s amazing that we have this magic window called a screen that lets us watch time pass. It’s almost like a time lapse. When a cable station airs all the Harry Potter movies back to back, you get to watch all of these kids grow up before your eyes. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and the whole lot of them. There’s also the sadness that comes with watching actors like Richard Harris and Alan Rickman onscreen, who have since died. But does it have to be sadness that we feel? Not necessarily. Our television is not just a reminder of mortality, it is also an escape from it. It preserves the actors that we love at various stages in their lives. Someday, I’ll be gone. Someday, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson will be gone, too. And perhaps one of my own children will write a remembrance of them on whatever social media has become 50 or 60 years in the future. But look, here’s Alan Rickman, alive and well, on my phone, and he’s speaking to me.

Tune in to the Vulture TV Podcast, produced by the Slate Group’s Panoply, every Tuesday, on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please send us your burning TV questions! Tweet us @Vulture, email tvquestions@vulture.com, or leave us a voice-mail at 646-504-7673.

Vulture TV Podcast: This Is Us, Rupert Grint, and Mortality