Emma Watson: ‘It takes time for friends to adjust. I’m not the girl they go into town with to grab a coffee, because I just get mobbed’
Is there life after Hermione for Emma Watson, the young heroine of the Harry Potter films? Now 17, she tells Lucy Cavendish about her first non-wizard role, and how she feels as if she's 'won the lottery'
Emma Watson has been in the public eye for what seems like forever. We all became aware of her eight years ago when she was cast as Hermione Granger in the first Harry Potter film, and it has gone on since then. So maybe it's not that surprising that her publicity machine is fretting somewhat. 'It's her first interview away from Potter, ' the PR whispers to me on our way to meet the 17-year-old Watson. 'She may be rather shy.' We turn a corner to find Watson skulking around a kitchen, nervously sipping some juice and looking very pretty and gamine in the current teenage uniform of three-quarter-length leggings, faux leopardskin pumps and brown soft-leather bomber jacket. She has long blonde hair, a neat face and very dark plucked eyebrows, and she still seems terribly young, despite everything she's experienced so far in her short life.
Emma Watson Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix Premiere @ Grauman's Chinese..., Stock Photo, Picture And Rights Managed Image. Pic. Plx 31297 012hnw
In many ways, it's hard to separate her from Hermione Granger. 'Yes, it is, isn't it?' she says all in a rush. 'Sometimes even I get muddled which one I am, because I know Hermione so very well. My little brother, Toby, who's three, gets very cross with me sometimes because when he sees me in Harry Potter he can't understand how I can be Emma and Hermione at the same time, ' she says.
This Christmas, though, she is being not Hermione but Pauline Fossil in Ballet Shoes, an adaptation of the popular Noel Streatfeild novel on BBC One. It has a starry cast including Victoria Wood, Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon in the Potter franchise), Eileen Atkins, Harriet Walter and Emilia Fox. The story of three impoverished orphans, Pauline, Petrova and Posy, who have to triumph over adversity by their own talents, has entranced generations of young girls. It is a heartwarming tale full of organza dresses, velvet frocks, tantrums and tears. Pauline turns out to be a brilliant actress and Posy a brilliant dancer, while Petrova is brilliant at fixing cars and flying aeroplanes.
How her performance is received is obviously terribly important to Watson. 'It's the first time I've been anything but Hermione, ' she says, fiddling with the cushions. 'Pauline is headstrong, so in that way she is quite like Hermione, but she is not academic. In fact, she actually reminds me of myself as a child, much more than Hermione does. Pauline is utterly obsessed with being an actress and I was just like that when I was younger. I dreamt of it. I practised speeches in front of mirrors. Whenever there was a part at school, I went for it. I was probably a bit of a show-off in the sense that any chance to get up and be seen, I did it.' She sounds like a nightmare. 'I was such a drama queen, ' she says, blushing a bit. 'I used to wail and moan and cry, and little things were blown up into being big things. I don't know how my parents stood it, really.' She says she isn't like that at all now. 'I've grown up a bit, ' she says. 'I've had to.'
Emma Watson Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix Premiere @ Grauman's Chinese..., Stock Photo, Picture And Rights Managed Image. Pic. Plx 31297 014hnw
It could be said she is playing safe with the wholesome Pauline Fossil, unlike Daniel Radcliffe who gained notoriety for stripping off on stage in Equus. Didn't she want to do something a bit more radical, to break out a bit more? 'Oh, God, no!' she says. 'This was nerve-wracking enough. I was so nervous I nearly turned it down. I'd just finished the last Harry Potter film, and it was the summer holidays and I hadn't had a break, but then I thought, I actually really want to be an actress, a proper actress who makes it her career. I'm always expecting to be found out and I thought, If I'm no good, now is the time to find out.'
Does she think she's any good in it? She tells me that on the first day she could barely speak, but that once she had got into it the whole part flowed for her. 'Does that sound mad?' she says. Also, she worked so hard she barely had time to think. 'It was shot over four weeks. Potter movies go on for months. And I'm not classed as a child actor any more, so I don't work restricted hours; I was amazed at how hard it all was. I enjoyed it, though.'
In many ways, Emma Watson's career so far has dealt in fantasy - the fantasy-land of Harry Potter, the fantasy performing-world of the Fossil children. Even her own life appears to have been as fantastical as that of her characters. She was only nine years old when the producers of Harry Potter appeared at the Dragon School in Oxford looking for their Hermione. 'I think there were about 18 of us, ' she says, 'and we weren't sure who we were auditioning for, but I knew I wanted to be Hermione. I had no interest in any other part. I felt I really was Hermione.' She then went through a rigorous round of auditions and screen tests and pretty quickly she realised she was a contender for the role she had been dreaming about.
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'Actually, I was obsessed with it, ' she says. 'My mother was so worried about me. She tried to talk to me about how other opportunities would come up, but I wouldn't listen. I had so much invested in it.' Now she says that she thinks it's incredible she got the part. 'I just tell myself I won the lottery, really.'
The upshot, though, is that not only has most of her childhood been documented on film but that she has hardly had one at all. Does she see her childhood as abnormal? Watson thinks a bit. 'Yes, I suppose I do, ' she says. 'I am very focused and very motivated, so I have tried very hard to combine being an actress with being a student, and so far it has worked out OK.' I tell her that I wasn't actually referring to her academic life. She is obviously highly intelligent. Not many girls could be filming for nine months of the year and somehow get A grades in all four AS levels as Watson did last summer. She still has two Harry Potter films to shoot - she will be 20 when the final installment is completed - but is applying to Cambridge to read English and philosophy. 'I feel it's terribly important to continue with my education, in case acting doesn't work out for me.'
I am more interested in her relationships with her peer group. How does she manage it? Most teenage girls' school years are made up of complicated friendship rituals involving equal amounts of joy and heartache as everyone jostles for position. Where does that leave this part-time schoolgirl? 'It's actually been very hard, ' she says. 'When I heard I'd got the part of Hermione, my mother said to me it was very important to keep the friends I'd made already. She told me that in the future it would be important to know people liked me for myself and not because of my career. At the time I didn't believe her. I was so excited I couldn't care, but now I know exactly what she means.'
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Watson says it isn't just the money but the lack of being able to fit in. 'It takes time for everyone to adjust, ' she says. 'I'm not the girl they get the number 19 bus into town with to grab a coffee. Actually, whenever I have tried to lead that type of life it's been very embarrassing because I just get mobbed. I've ended up hiding in unexpected places like the computer department in Dixons. It's an uncomfortable experience for everyone. Sometimes I miss the fact that I have never really been a teenager because I have been Hermione for such a long time.'
The role has made her very rich, though - she is said to be worth about £10 million - and she acknowledges the fact that this is also a potential minefield with others of her age. 'I don't spend vast amounts of money, ' she says. 'I really try not to.' She says the most expensive thing she's ever bought is a laptop.
In fact, as the list goes on of all the things she's missed out on, I begin to feel rather sorry for her. As a young girl she had to adapt to life on set away from her family. Her parents, she tells me, are both hard-working lawyers, which meant that neither of them had much time to visit her.
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'Actually, I was obsessed with it, ' she says. 'My mother was so worried about me. She tried to talk to me about how other opportunities would come up, but I wouldn't listen. I had so much invested in it.' Now she says that she thinks it's incredible she got the part. 'I just tell myself I won the lottery, really.'
The upshot, though, is that not only has most of her childhood been documented on film but that she has hardly had one at all. Does she see her childhood as abnormal? Watson thinks a bit. 'Yes, I suppose I do, ' she says. 'I am very focused and very motivated, so I have tried very hard to combine being an actress with being a student, and so far it has worked out OK.' I tell her that I wasn't actually referring to her academic life. She is obviously highly intelligent. Not many girls could be filming for nine months of the year and somehow get A grades in all four AS levels as Watson did last summer. She still has two Harry Potter films to shoot - she will be 20 when the final installment is completed - but is applying to Cambridge to read English and philosophy. 'I feel it's terribly important to continue with my education, in case acting doesn't work out for me.'
I am more interested in her relationships with her peer group. How does she manage it? Most teenage girls' school years are made up of complicated friendship rituals involving equal amounts of joy and heartache as everyone jostles for position. Where does that leave this part-time schoolgirl? 'It's actually been very hard, ' she says. 'When I heard I'd got the part of Hermione, my mother said to me it was very important to keep the friends I'd made already. She told me that in the future it would be important to know people liked me for myself and not because of my career. At the time I didn't believe her. I was so excited I couldn't care, but now I know exactly what she means.'
Emma Watson Biography 2023: Early Life, Career, Net Worth, Age, Height, Husband, Family
Watson says it isn't just the money but the lack of being able to fit in. 'It takes time for everyone to adjust, ' she says. 'I'm not the girl they get the number 19 bus into town with to grab a coffee. Actually, whenever I have tried to lead that type of life it's been very embarrassing because I just get mobbed. I've ended up hiding in unexpected places like the computer department in Dixons. It's an uncomfortable experience for everyone. Sometimes I miss the fact that I have never really been a teenager because I have been Hermione for such a long time.'
The role has made her very rich, though - she is said to be worth about £10 million - and she acknowledges the fact that this is also a potential minefield with others of her age. 'I don't spend vast amounts of money, ' she says. 'I really try not to.' She says the most expensive thing she's ever bought is a laptop.
In fact, as the list goes on of all the things she's missed out on, I begin to feel rather sorry for her. As a young girl she had to adapt to life on set away from her family. Her parents, she tells me, are both hard-working lawyers, which meant that neither of them had much time to visit her.
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