Emma Watson, who shot to fame when she nabbed the part of Hermione in Harry Potter as a child, recently implemented a strict no-selfies policy.
But that doesn’t mean she won’t make your week if you do happen to bump into her at your local Woolies…
The actress, who has been famous for more than half her life, explains to Derek Blasberg in the March issue of Vanity Fair that while a selfie is off the table, a pretty wonderful Plan B waits for any fan that dares to approach.
“I’ll say, ‘I will sit here and answer every single Harry Potter fandom question you have but I just can’t do a picture.’ I have to carefully pick and choose my moment to interact. When am I a celebrity sighting versus when am I going to make someone’s freakin’ week? Children I don’t say no to, for example,” she said in the new interview.
“For me, it’s the difference between being able to have a life and not. If someone takes a photograph of me and posts it, within two seconds they’ve created a marker of exactly where I am within 10 meters. They can see what I’m wearing and who I’m with. I just can’t give that tracking data.”
The UN Women Goodwill Ambassador explained that the brilliant if not unusual policy stems from her newfound ability to say ‘no.’
“I’ve been doing this since I was 10 or 11, and I’ve often thought, ‘I’m so wrong for this job because I’m too serious; I’m a pain in the ass; I’m difficult; I don’t fit,'” says Emma, who considered giving up acting altogether in 2009.
“But as I’ve got older, I’ve realized, ‘No! Taking on those battles, the smaller ones and the bigger ones, is who I am.'”
In the cover story, Emma goes on to explain that after her breakthrough role as Hermione, she struggled with finding her true sense of self.
“I’d walk down the red carpet and go into the bathroom. I had on so much makeup and these big, fluffy, full-on dresses. I’d put my hands on the sink and look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Who is this?'” the actress recalls. “I didn’t connect with the person who was looking back at me, and that was a very unsettling feeling.”
The actress, who turned down the lead role in Damian Chazelle’s Oscar winning film La La Land, is the first to admit that her newfound attitude has affected her job choices.
“There have been hard moments in my career when I’ve had an agent or a movie producer say, ‘You are making a big mistake.’ But what’s the point of achieving great success if you feel like you’re losing your freakin’ mind? I’ve had to say, ‘Guys, I need to go back to school,’ or ‘I just need to go home and hang out with my cats.'”
“People have looked at me and been like, ‘Is she insane?’ But, actually, it’s the opposite of insane,” she added.
Emma will soon hit the silver screen again as Belle in the highly anticipated new movie Beauty and the Beast.
Joined by co-stars Dan Stevens, who plays the Beast, and Luke Evans, who stars as Gaston, the British beauty recently walked the red carpet at the film’s premiere in London.
A real life Belle!
Emma’s make-up artist Caroline Barnes used all-natural and cruelty-free makeup products to get Emma red carpet ready.
Emma wore a bespoke, off-the-shoulder Emilia Wickstead gown with structural detailing and train and it was almost as though she was still in costume.
In true sustainable Emma form, the dress was made from off-cuts that would have likely only seen the bottom of a bin.
“The gown is made from end-of-line fabric sourced from a family-run, London business specialising in couture fabrics, and produced in Italy,” Emma said on her Instagram. “These unwanted fabric pieces have been given a new lease of life; often irregular quantities of surplus or end-of-line fabrics cannot be sold and are destroyed. This piece was created in Emilia Wickstead’s London atelier, by an all-female team.”
We can’t wait to see Emma in this stunning new role!
