Emma Watson was once one of the most famous child actors of all time.
But although she found fame by playing Hermione in the Harry Potter series, she has gone on
to become so much more.
From her academic beginnings to her college days to her feminist activism and beyond,
this is the stunning transformation of Emma Watson.
After only a few years of playing Hermione on-screen, Watson developed a special affinity
with her character.
In 2005, the 15-year-old actress told the BBC:
"It feels like I don't really have to act any more.
There's so much of me in Hermione and her in me that it feels like I'm barely doing
anything sometimes."
So maybe it’s unsurprising that Watson, just like the character she’s most known
for playing, also excelled at her studies.
During filming on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2006, it was announced that
she had received top-level scores on her exams.
“Well done!
See here, everyone!
Miss Granger’s done it!
Splendid.”
Despite becoming a household name after the Harry Potter movies were released, Watson
has always strived to maintain some sense of normality in her life - and her college
days were no exception.
In 2009, Watson announced that she planned to study liberal arts at Brown University,
and insisted that she would go through the full college experience, including living
in dorms.
She told People magazine:
"If I'm going to do this experience, I'm going to do it properly and going to do it like
everyone else."
Her only condition?
That her roommate not be too big of a Harry Potter fan.
Watson also expressed a desire to keep acting during her studies.
She said:
"I definitely want to continue.
I've managed to juggle and balance studying and working well enough to this point so I
can't see why I can't keep doing that [...] But I am looking forward to being a normal teenager
and want a normal experience for a bit."
Watson graduated from Brown in 2014 - the same year the then-24-year-old British actress
was officially named the new Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N.'s gender-equality arm, U.N. Women.
In particular, she would be focusing on the organization’s women’s-empowerment campaign,
HeForShe.
In a statement, Watson said:
"Women's rights are something so inextricably linked with who I am, so deeply personal and
rooted in my life that I can't imagine an opportunity more exciting."
Later that year, Watson gave a speech at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City, asking
men and boys to support gender equality.
“I want men to take up this mantle.
So that their daughters, sisters, and mothers can be free from prejudice.”
She also explained the benefit this would have towards men themselves.
“But also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human, too.
Reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned.”
Since then, Watson has continued her work on gender equality and feminism.
In 2015, she sat down with Malala Yousafzai, the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner, to discuss
life, activism, feminism, and how to go about creating positive change.
She also spoke publicly in 2016 about pay equality in Hollywood and beyond.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Watson explained:
"We are not supposed to talk about money, because people will think you're difficult
or a diva [...] call me whatever you want, it's not going to stop me from trying to do
the right thing and make sure that the right thing happens."
In an interview with Paper that same year, Watson opened up about feminism in general.
She told the magazine:
"I guess if I could give women anything through feminism [...] it would just be, to be able
to move away, to move through all of that.
I see so many women struggling with issues of self-esteem.
They know and they hear it and they read it in magazines and books all the time that self-love
is really important, but it's really hard to actually do."
When you think of celebrities, you tend to imagine the fabulous, over-privileged lives
they often lead - but that’s something Watson has done her best to avoid.
In the past, she’s even questioned the meaning of that very word.
She told the Radio Times:
"There's a whole new definition to celebrity now.
And I think that's why you see a lot of actors blanching at being associated with that word
‘celebrity’ because it's become something that isn't really associated with having a
craft [...] But it's easy for me to sound like a total hypocrite because, of course,
I'm dressed in designer clothes right now."
Such self awareness is really refreshing!
In March 2017, Emma Watson made her big screen debut as a Disney princess, starring as Belle
in Beauty and the Beast.
Watson had originally turned down the role of Cinderella in Disney’s live-action remake
of that movie, but agreed to play Belle because of her admiration for the character.
She told TotalFilm:
"In a strange way, she challenges the status quo of the place she lives in, and I found
that really inspiring.
And also, she manages to keep her integrity and have a completely independent point of
view."
Beauty and the Beast also offered Watson the chance to flex her singing and dancing abilities.
“It’s a totally different thing from acting in a way.
There’s nothing to hide behind.
It’s your voice, and, yeah, I felt very sort of naked doing it for the first time.”
Clearly, Emma Watson’s not afraid of a challenge or two.