ACTING OUT

Emma Watson Reveals the One ‘Soul-Destroying’ Part of Her Job

The “Harry Potter” star hasn’t appeared on the big screen since 2019.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson may find the acting process itself “freeing,” but says promoting her projects after the fact is a “soul-destroying” hazard of the job. The 35-year-old hasn’t appeared on the big screen since Greta Gerwig’s Oscar-winning 2019 adaptation of Little Women, which seems to be just fine with Watson. “A bigger component than the actual job itself is the promotion and selling of that piece of work, this piece of art,” she told Hollywood Authentic. “The balance of that can get quite thrown off. I think I’ll be honest and straightforward, and say: I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul-destroying.” Still, for Watson, it’s not as simple as just walking away from Hollywood. “I do very much miss using my skill set, and I very much miss the art,” she added. “I just found I got to do so little of the bit that I actually enjoyed.” While Watson shared that what she loves most about acting is how “it’s so freeing” to separate oneself from reality when rehearsing for a part and getting into character, she admits that it can also be “a lot of pressure.” “I don’t miss the pressure,” she said. In 2023, Watson returned to Oxford University—where she had studied between 2011 and 2012 while working on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the final film in the hugely successful film franchise—to pursue a master’s degree in Creative Writing. She graduated from Brown University in 2014 with a BA in English Literature.