Emma Watson Revealed Why She Hasn’t Acted in Nearly Five Years

It’s no secret that being a child actor isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Finding fame and fortune before you even hit puberty is extremely challenging and very hard work. But Emma Watson was not just your average young actor. At nine years old she, along with her co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, became the star of what would become one of the most successful cinematic franchises of all time. And it didn’t come without its sacrifices.

In her most recent interview, Watson hints that she wasn’t really all that happy with where her career went after Harry Potter. She has been open before about being worried that she would be typecast after playing Hermione Granger; she even took on various “wild child” roles in an attempt to branch out. And yet many people still wanted to see her play the bookworm instead.

Watson’s most recent major movies were Beauty and the Beast and Little Women, and in both of them she played a character who was more like Hermione than not. Fans also noticed that the actress wasn’t on the press tour for Little Women while the rest of the ensemble cast was, leading to rumors that she might be thinking about retiring from acting. But in reality, Watson had been harboring doubts about her career long before Little Women.

Watson told Porter magazine in 2015 that life on the set Harry Potter gave her something of an identity crisis. 25 years old at the time, she remarked, “[I’ve] spent more than half of my life pretending to be someone else. While my contemporaries were dyeing their hair and figuring out who they were I was figuring out who Hermione was and how best to portray her.” 

In fact, Watson very nearly quit the Harry Potter franchise. After Order of the Phoenix, which was released in 2007, the actress considered giving up her role as Hermione because life on the set was so difficult and regimented. “I get told what time I can eat, when I have time to go to the bathroom,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2010. “Every single second of my day is not in my power.” She often struggled with life away from set, too. There were parts of fame that didn’t sit well with her, and she felt like someone else might have been better suited to it.

In December 2019 she told Vogue magazine, “Like, ‘Why me?’ Somebody else would have enjoyed and wanted this aspect of it more than I did. I’ve wrestled a lot with the guilt around that. Of being, like, ‘I should be enjoying this more. I should be more excited.’ And I’m actually really struggling.” She continued, “There’s been moments when everything just got so big, where I almost had vertigo on my own life, and it’s got so big I felt disconnected.” Reflecting on her career path, she mused, “I think I would have done it another way.”

But of course, life did not happen another way: in 2001 Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone became the highest-grossing film of the year, and an 11-year-old Emma Watson became an international superstar. Unfortunately, as plenty of other child stars can tell you, there were some very unpleasant aspects to this. The actress has been open about some of the things she had to deal with growing up a household name.

For instance, Watson has had to object to the media sexualizing her as a young actress and overanalyzing her romantic scenes. She told British newspaper The Times in 2016, "It's deeply irritating… I've been in 15 films in total, and me kissing somebody else shouldn't be risqué or horrifying, but I think that will continue for a long time. There have been lots of advantages to being part of [Harry Potter], and playing that role for a long time, but inevitably there are obstacles and that's one of them."

It was perhaps this aspect of fame that inspired Watson to become such a vocal activist for women’s rights. In 2014 she launched her “HeForShe” campaign as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. In 2015 she was even given the accolade of a place on Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People for her efforts. “Emma Watson’s alter ego Hermione Granger would doubtless approve of her HeForShe campaign and its gutsy, smart take on feminism,” read the magazine’s tribute to her. Watson admitted that she became a feminist because at the age of 14 she was already “being sexualized by certain elements of the press.”

Just 12 hours after Watson made her speech about gender equality at the UN Headquarters in 2014, she was threatened online by trolls. But while this upset her and her family terribly, Watson nevertheless continued her work. In fact, in a speech at Facebook’s London headquarters in 2015, she said, “If anything, if they were trying to put me off it, it did the opposite.”

Watson wasn’t the only one who noticed this unfair treatment. Her famous Harry Potter co-stars have often been vocal about their feelings. Daniel Radcliffe, for example, who himself suffered from the pressures of being a child star too, has noted how the media treated Watson differently. In 2014 when talking to the Associated Press, he mentioned that as soon as the Potter cast became adults “the male population had no problem sexualizing Emma Watson immediately.”

Then there’s Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy and who has been very open about his close bond with Watson. “I became very protective over her,” Felton admitted. “I’ve always had a soft spot for her, and that continues to the day.” And that’s fairly obvious to those who keep an eye on both of their Instagram pages. They seem to meet up regularly, and Emma told British Vogue in 2022 that the pair “speak most weeks.”

So perhaps it’s not really surprising that Watson has transitioned more and more into activism and philanthropy; non-acting work takes up a lot of her time now. In 2020 she became the head of Kering’s sustainability committee. She told Vogue magazine at the time, “If people notice a new quietness from me, it does not mean I am no longer there or do not care! I will just be doing my work in a different way: fewer red carpets and more conference meetings!”

Watson also took some time to explore new avenues. In 2022 she directed an ad campaign for Prada. She told the website WWD that year, “I think it was serendipitous that Prada came to me with this project. It was around the time when I had decided in my heart, and my head, that I wanted to direct something.”

In fact, she said, directing was an ambition she’d had for quite some time. “I don’t think I thought it was a possibility,” she explained. “No one offered me the directing job. I had to give myself permission. I had to ask. I love telling stories. I think I’m good at it. I think I have a vision.”

More recently, in April 2023, Watson elaborated on this desire to expand her repertoire. In a revealing interview with The Financial Times, she said, “People always told me I should direct and produce, even when I was on Potter. I was worried it was just technical, not creative, and I couldn’t bring what I think is probably my skill-set.” But with help from her brother Alex and “friends asking for favors,” she realized that she was more than capable. And it helps to explain her break from acting.

Watson was very candid about what had caused her to take a hiatus from acting. She explained, “I wasn’t very happy, if I’m being honest. 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.”

Watson explained that one of the most challenging parts of her job was that every time she had a new film out, she constantly had streams of journalists asking her, “How does this align with your viewpoint?” She said, “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.”

Watson went on, “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. 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.’”

Today, Watson has a few different projects on the go, and one of them is helping with her family’s vineyard business. In 2023 she and her brother Alex launched a gin called Renais, and that’s something Watson did have control over. She’s a shareholder in the business and oversees the art direction for the marketing.

The Renais project also fitted in with Watson’s interest in sustainability. She said at the launch in May, “I’ve loved having the opportunity to create something with my brother Alex. I’m particularly proud of upcycling grapes from vineyards — including my dad’s — to reduce waste and create something new.” In fact, the name “Renais” actually means “rebirth.”

Meanwhile, Watson is also a yoga teacher. She qualified at the tender age of 23, having quite impressively found time to train in between making blockbusters. “I need to find a way to always feel safe and at home within myself. Because I can never rely on a physical place,” she explained about her passion in a 2014 interview with Elle.

So, will Watson ever return to acting? We have good news. She says, “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. I just don’t want to switch into robot mode any more. Does that make sense?” 

Watson does have another showbiz project in the pipeline, though it’s directing rather than acting. She told the Financial Times that she had been hired to direct a music video for someone famous, although she couldn’t reveal the name. And after that, well, hopefully the sky will be the limit for the multi-talented woman who was once Hermione — but is now, simply, Emma.

It may have been easier for Watson’s male co-stars in many respects — they, of course, were not sexualized in the same way by the media and did not face the same challenges under the scrutiny of the public eye as she did — but it certainly wasn’t plain sailing for the actors playing Harry and Ron. Rupert Grint admitted to Bustle in January 2023, “I was feeling the difficulty of being seen, being overshadowed. In the movies we merged into one. By the end of it I was playing myself. The lines were blurred.” In fact, things got so tough that Grint, like Watson, even considered turning his back on the profession he’d entered at the age of just 11.

A candid Grint recalled, “Potter was so full on — [filming] all year, then we’d promote the rest of the time. It was quite suffocating. I wanted a break, to reflect on everything.” Thankfully for Grint, that break came when the final J.K. Rowling adaptation, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, wrapped in the early 2010s. Grint explained, “It was an out-of-body experience for a while, but I think we finished at the right time. If we continued, it could’ve gone downhill.”

Just like Watson and Radcliffe, Grint also had to deal with the section of the press who wanted them to fail as they grew up. He said, “I’ve always felt there was this expectation for us to go off the rails, follow the child-star stereotype. That’s always been something to fight against.” 

Daniel Radcliffe, meanwhile, also felt the pressure of growing up in such an iconic movie franchise. In a chat with Marc Maron on the comedian’s podcast WTF in 2015, Radcliffe said, “There was definitely a time when I was coming out of Potter into the real world, and suddenly I was in a world when I was not in that consistency anymore. Then I was living alone, and I think I was really freaked out.” 

Radcliffe appeared to make a conscious effort to take roles a million miles away from his iconic boy wizard. He played Allen Ginsberg, one of America’s most celebrated poets, in Kill Your Darlings and later appeared as a farting corpse in oddball tale Swiss Army Man.

Grint, on the other hand, has largely gravitated toward the small screen since leaving the world of Harry Potter behind. As well as Servant he’s also appeared in Snatch, The ABC Murders, and Sick Note just to name a few. You may well have recently seen Grint pop up in an episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix anthology Cabinet of Curiosities, too.

The rather macabre theme running through most of these projects has given Grint a new outlook on death. He said, “This has made me face it a bit. I don’t think I’ve fully worked it out just yet, but there’s something therapeutic about these roles as well, I guess. Demystifying. I’m drawn to a hidden vulnerability: a bit broken, damaged people. At the moment, it seems to be what I’m doing.”

During his interview with Bustle, Grint revealed he’s always been fully aware of being measured against his former co-stars Radcliffe and Watson. He remarked, “We’re all completely different and going along different paths.” Of course, the actor still remains immensely proud to have been involved in such a generation-defining franchise. 

In 2022 Grint joined Watson and Radcliffe for the much anticipated Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts. The redhead actually believed that HBO Max should have waited a little longer to stage a televised reunion. But he was still more than happy to reconnect with his fellow former child stars.

Grint explained, “It was happening, I didn’t really have a say. [Being in Harry Potter] was a really unique experience only us core group really know, so it’s nice to see them. It was a good opportunity to reflect on everything and just say how crazy it was. It’s always nice to look back.” 

And Grint has come to terms with the fact that no matter where his career goes he will always be remembered for just one role. He revealed, “I answer to it, if someone calls me Ron.” Proving he has a sense of humor about the whole thing, Grint then joked, “It’s my second name.” 

But would he ever let his daughter follow in his footsteps? Well, when asked the same question by Glamour magazine, Grint answered, “When I did it, my family didn’t really know what that meant, the kind of sacrifices you do make and the consequences it has on your life. No one really knew the scale at which the films would reach. You do sacrifice a lot.” 

Grint concluded, “Your anonymity is something you really do take for granted, and I wouldn’t want her to give that up lightly. But I think I would, yeah — I had a great experience, and I have no regrets. I would want her to do what she wants, but I think I’d be a real stage mum!” Clearly, Harry Potter has touched every part of Grint's life — and it hasn't always been easy for him.