Rupert Grint to play a gangster in London stage debut

Rupert Grint is following his "Harry Potter" co-star Daniel Radcliffe from Hogwarts onto the stage.

Producers announced Friday that Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the Potter films, will play a pill-popping gangster in a West End revival of Jez Butterworth's "Mojo" later this year.

Ben Whishaw, Daniel Mays and Brendan Coyle (who plays Mr. Bates on "Downton Abbey") are also in the cast of Butterworth's savagely funny drama about London's 1950s' underworld.

It will be directed by Ian Rickson, who led the play's original 1995 production at the Royal Court Theatre. Butterworth went on to write Tony-winner "Jerusalem."

Rickson told the Daily Mail, "I'd seen the Potter films with my daughter and always thought Rupert was truthful as Ron Weasley. There's something ordinary and centered about him, and in this world of 'Mojo' you want that grittiness."

He added, "A whole lot of people who might not see 'Mojo' will come and see it."

"Mojo" begins previews at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London in October.

Radcliffe has taken stage roles in London and New York and is currently starring in "The Cripple of Inishmaan" in London.