Emma Watson became an overnight movie star thanks to the Harry Potter films. She spent a decade making major blockbusters and grew up in the spotlight. It’s the sort of experience few other actors, other than her co-stars, have ever been through. While many child actors leave Hollywood, Watson did not, though she hasn't been seen in a while.
Emma Watson has been taking a little break from Hollywood of late. She hasn’t been seen on screen since 2019’s Little Women. In a recent interview for Hollywood Authentic, the Beauty and the Beast actress indicates that one of the reasons she took a break isn’t that she didn’t want to act, but rather that she didn’t want to do all the work associated with making a movie after it’s completed. Watson said…
In some ways I really won the lottery [with acting], and what happened to me is so unusual. But 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.
Many actors work their entire careers to achieve the success that Watson found at the very beginning. She clearly knows she was lucky in that regard. With a new Harry Potter TV series on the way, a new set of young actors have "won the lottery" in the same way Watson and her costars once did. It will be interesting to see how their path through acting mirrors their predecessors.
Unfortunately for Emma Watson, “selling things” has been a big part of her entire career in film. She started out as part of a major franchise, and promoting those films was always going to be an important part of the job. The same thing goes for starring in major Disney releases like the live-action Beauty and the Beast or major awards contenders like Little Women.
Watson makes it clear that she still loves acting. Doing the work on a set is still something she appreciates and has missed during her time away. The issue was simply that the job of being a professional film actress isn’t just about the acting, in her opinion. When she talks about the actual work, you can tell she loves it. She continued…
But I do very much miss using my skill-set, and I very much miss the art. I just found I got to do so little of the bit that I actually enjoyed. The moment you get on a film set, you don’t get very long for rehearsal. But the moment you get to talk through a scene – or I got to prepare and think about how I wanted to do something – and then 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.
Emma Watson had made clear that she's not retired, and she does indicate in the interview that she’s working on some sort of new project, though she doesn’t say what it is. Assuming that it will put her on screen again, that will conceivably lead to one other element of acting that she doesn’t love, as there is apparently a lot of stress for her when it comes down to nailing the performance. Watson said…
But I don’t miss the pressure. 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.
However, Emma Watson feels it seems quite likely we will see her on screen again before too long.
