Emma Watson has said she found promoting her acting work soul-destroying and doesn’t miss the pressure of putting out new projects.
The 35-year-old actor, who rose to fame aged 10 as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise, said in some ways she “won the lottery” with her early success but admitted her career has been “so unusual”.
Watson, who went on to star in Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring in 2013, reflected: “A bigger component than the actual job itself is the promotion and selling of that piece of work, this piece of art.
“I think I’ll be honest and straightforward, and say: I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul destroying,” she told Hollywood Authentic.
The actor, whose most recent film was Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation in 2019, continued: “I don’t miss the pressure. I forget 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.”
Despite her aversion to press tours and public pressure, Watson did admit she profoundly misses using her skill-set as an actor and the feeling of being absorbed into a role.
“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,” she said.
“Because you just cannot be anywhere else. It’s so freeing. I miss that profoundly.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Watson admitted she struggled with stardom in her pre-teens. “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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Back in 2019, while speaking to Vogue, Watson opened up about the “guilt” she felt in regards to her fame, as she wondered why she wasn’t enjoying life in the limelight more.
“I’ve sat in therapy and felt really guilty about it, to be honest,” the actor said. “Why me? Somebody else would have enjoyed and wanted this aspect of it more than I did. And I struggle with it, I’ve wrestled a lot with the guilt around that.”
Watson revealed that she once thought to herself: “I should be enjoying this more, I should be more excited and I’m actually really struggling.”
Since Little Women, Watson, who studied English at Brown University and subsequently became a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in 2014, has modelled for Burberry and Lancôme.
She was appointed to the G7 advisory body for women’s rights in 2019, consulting with leaders of foreign policy.
