Emma Watson hasn’t acted since December 2018, when she wrapped production on Greta Gerwig’s beloved “Little Women” adaptation. Considering the “Harry Potter” star isn’t currently attached to any film or television projects, her acting hiatus could very well hit the five-year mark by the end of 2023. Why did Watson step away from acting? She told Financial Times in a recent interview that she “wasn’t very happy” with the profession.
“I think I felt a bit caged,” Watson said. “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 to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process.”
“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,” Watson continued. “And 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.’”
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Watson, whose acting career includes eight “Harry Potter” movies plus Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “The Bling Ring,” “Beauty and the Beast” and more, starred as Meg March in Gerwig’s “Little Women,” which remains her most recent acting role to date. “Little Women” earned six Oscar nominations, including best picture.
Would Watson return to acting? “Yes, absolutely,” she said. “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. And I just don’t want to switch into robot mode any more. Does that make sense?”
Head over to the Financial Times’ website to read her latest interview in its entirety.
