Cal Gaunt
Emma Watson has opened up about why we no longer see her in movies.
Watson is an English actress known for starring in blockbusters and independent films.
She’s had a hugely successful acting career, starring in all eight Harry Potter movies, alongside hits such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Beauty and the Beast.
Yet in recent years, Watson has been absent from our screens and now, she’s finally explained why.
Watson had never actually acted before landing her role as Hermoine Granger in the Harry Potter movies.
In a conversation with Interview Magazine, she recalled: “There was no open audition – they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools.
“They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.”
After a lengthy and grueling audition process, Watson finally landed the role of a lifetime – making her a household name and financially secure.
Yet her Harry Potter days weren’t entirely smooth sailing.
Previously, Watson revealed she almost quit the wizarding world when ‘the fame thing had finally hit home in a big way.’
Co-star Rupert Grint made the surprising revelation in the Harry Potter reunion, saying: “You were considering pulling out. I’ve never really spoken to you about that.”
“I think I was scared,” Watson acknowledged. “I don’t know if you ever felt like it got to a tipping point where you were like, ‘This is kind of forever now.'”
“We never really spoke about it,” Daniel Radcliffe weighed in. “I guess we were just going through it at our own pace. We were kind of in the moment at the time. It just didn’t really occur to us that we were all probably kind of having similar feelings.”
Watson commented: “No one had to convince me to see it through. The fans genuinely wanted me to succeed and they all genuinely have each other’s backs.”
Following the success of Harry Potter, Watson went on to star in several movies, with her latest being Little Women, released in 2019.
With this being a few years ago, many of the star’s fans have taken to social media and questioned why she appears to have stopped acting.
One fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Come on, come back. We miss you already.”
Another added: “Hope she’s doing well.”
In an interview with the Financial Times, Watson explained why she’s decided to leave the spotlight.
“I wasn’t very happy, if I’m being honest,” she admitted. “I think I felt a bit caged. The thing I found really hard was that I had to go out and sell something that I really didn’t have very much control over.”
The actress particularly took issue with promoting the projects she was attached to.
She explained: “To stand in front of a film and have every journalist be able to say, ‘How does this align with your viewpoint?’ It was very difficult to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process.
“I was held accountable in a way that I began to find really frustrating, because I didn’t have a voice, I didn’t have a say. And I started to [realize] that I only wanted to stand in front of things where if someone was going to give me flak about it, I could say, in a way that didn’t make me hate myself, ‘Yes, I screwed up, it was my decision, I should have done better.'”
Having worked on a Prada campaign, Watson has found a new creative interest in writing and directing.
The actress has also revealed whether she’ll ever act again.
She told the Financial Times: “Yes, absolutely. But I’m happy to sit and wait for the next right thing. I love what I do.
“It’s finding a way to do it where I don’t have to fracture myself into different faces and people. And I just don’t want to switch into robot mode anymore. Does that make sense?”
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