It’s been six years since Emma Watson last graced the silver screen, and the Harry Potter and Bling Ring star certainly misses some aspects of the acting career she stepped back from — but not all of them.
In a recent interview with Hollywood Authentic, Watson reflected on her work and all that came with it, saying, “In some ways I really won the lottery [with acting], and what happened to me is so unusual.”
But, she added, “a bigger component than the actual job itself is the promotion and selling of that piece of work, this piece of art. The balance of that can get quite thrown off. I think I’ll be honest and straight-forward, and say: I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul-destroying.”
Watson has previously discussed her disdain for the marketing and promotion aspects of her previous duties as not just an actress, but a A-list name most movies in which she appeared sold their appeal on. “I think I felt a bit caged,” she said in a 2023 interview. “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. 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.”
The actress’ most recent film, Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women, was something of an anomaly in her post-Potter career. In addition to Watson, the film boasted blockbuster draws like Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, and Saorsie Ronan. More typical was Sofia Coppola’s ripped-from-the-headlines robbery ring pic The Bling Ring, in which Watson’s name acted as a kind of spotlight to shine on an otherwise unconventional film that eschewed a starry ensemble.
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But Watson’s acting reservations extend beyond just sales. “I don’t miss the pressure,” she told Hollywood Authentic. “I forgot it was a lot of pressure. I did a small thing for a play, just with my friends. I was like, ‘Bloody hell, this is stressful!’ And that wasn’t even for a real public audience or anything. I don’t miss that.”
Nick Wall Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and Daniel Radcliffe in ‘Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts’
All things considered, Watson did confess that she “profoundly” misses “using my skill-set.” She explained, “The minute the camera rolls, and getting to just completely forget about everything else in the world other than that one moment – it’s such an intense form of meditation. Because you just cannot be anywhere else. It’s so freeing. I miss that profoundly.”
Watson did return to the public eye in 2022, for the HBO Max special Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts.
In the lead-up to big anniversary of the film franchise that turned Watson and costars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint into household names, the actress reflected that even as a preteen she struggled with the implications of stardom. “I did find a diary entry that was kind of like… I could see that at times I was lonely,” she said. “The fame thing had finally hit home in a big way.”
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