Emma - Articles/Press - GQ Magazine 2013
British GQ Magazine (2013)
Photoshoot Here.
For more than a decade, Emma Watson was known to the world as the clean-cut Hermione in the multi-billion-dollar Harry Potter franchise. Now, we're introducing the 22-year-old superstar as you've never seen her before. Watson talks stardom, sex and stalkers with Dylan Jones as well as poses for a stunning photo shoot in character as Nicki, her pole-dancing Valley vixen in Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring.
There is a funny, no doubt apocryphal story concerning one of Emma Watson's first classes as a freshman at Brown University in the autumn of 2010. She had decided to move to Brown, in Providence, Rhode Island, in the hope of stepping back from the spotlight caused by the extraordinary amount of attention she had received due to her performances as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series.
AdvertisementIn her class, Watson, who was sitting near the front of the room, stuck her hand up to answer - correctly - one of the questions posed by the lecturer. To which a student from the back of the class shouted, in the worst kind of sotto voce, "Ten points for Gryffindor!"
Watson has been living with this since she was ten, almost 13 years ago, and having spent most of her life in the limelight, has developed something of a brilliantly polished protective shield.
Having interviewed dozens of actors and actresses in my time, I have become used to the ways in which they try to act courteous and engaged when all they really want to do is bolt out of the room, back to their trailer, back to their partner, or, in some cases, back to their hotel room in order to spend the rest of the day with their head buried in a bag of cocaine.
Most are polite, and play the "I-win-you-win" game, in which the journalist scurries back to his lair, armed with enough good copy, colour and professionally delivered candour to conjure up a celebrity profile that doesn't read too much like all the other ones about the person they've just met. And usually it works: I've long since stopped being amazed by how easy it is for celebrities to convince journalists that they have made a "connection", hoodwinking them into believing that their relationship has now been re-calibrated to such an extent that they are no longer master and servant.
Actors are usually contractually obliged to promote a film, so if they have been forced to sit down with the Mail On Sunday, theIndependent or the New York Times, they obviously want to spend as little time doing it as possible. Occasionally, actors have the balls (or the misguided arrogance) to go against the grain and actually treat the interview as an encumbrance. I once interviewed Miranda Richardson in Blakes Hotel, London, for some film she was promoting and she couldn't have been less engaged. Didn't even pretend. Of course I found the whole thing particularly annoying, and said so in print, but in a way I secretly admired her.
Emma Watson has developed her own shield, naturally, although she acts in a completely charming manner, answering questions both on and off the record with deftness, wit and skill. In fact, she is extremely good company - delightful, really - and professional to a fault. It was less like an interview and more like a meeting, and I don't say that disrespectfully. We were there to do a job, a job that she - at least - did faultlessly.
In the flesh, Watson looks a lot younger than she tends to on film, which made me a little disconcerted, as there were moments when shedidn't look that much older than my eldest daughter, but then I would imagine my reaction is not unusual. The way she looks right now gives her an immense amount of power, which is why she is choosing her post-Potter roles incredibly carefully.
The film she is promoting is The Bling Ring, a true-life tale about a gang of audacious, rich, club-hopping, coke-hoovering Valley kids who stole clothes, cash and jewellery from various Hollywood celebrities - including Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan- motivated by little but vanity and celebrity. Shot in a docudrama style by director Sofia Coppola, Watson is the film's principal star, playing Nicki, a teen with an ex-Playboy model mother, played by Leslie Mann. Coming off the back of a decade of Hermione movies, this is a little like Julie Andrews deciding to play a stripper after appearing in The Sound Of Music, or former child star Natalie Portman appearing in a film about a menacing, sexually charged schizophrenic.
There is a funny, no doubt apocryphal story concerning one of Emma Watson's first classes as a freshman at Brown University in the autumn of 2010. She had decided to move to Brown, in Providence, Rhode Island, in the hope of stepping back from the spotlight caused by the extraordinary amount of attention she had received due to her performances as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series.
AdvertisementIn her class, Watson, who was sitting near the front of the room, stuck her hand up to answer - correctly - one of the questions posed by the lecturer. To which a student from the back of the class shouted, in the worst kind of sotto voce, "Ten points for Gryffindor!"
Watson has been living with this since she was ten, almost 13 years ago, and having spent most of her life in the limelight, has developed something of a brilliantly polished protective shield.
Having interviewed dozens of actors and actresses in my time, I have become used to the ways in which they try to act courteous and engaged when all they really want to do is bolt out of the room, back to their trailer, back to their partner, or, in some cases, back to their hotel room in order to spend the rest of the day with their head buried in a bag of cocaine.
Most are polite, and play the "I-win-you-win" game, in which the journalist scurries back to his lair, armed with enough good copy, colour and professionally delivered candour to conjure up a celebrity profile that doesn't read too much like all the other ones about the person they've just met. And usually it works: I've long since stopped being amazed by how easy it is for celebrities to convince journalists that they have made a "connection", hoodwinking them into believing that their relationship has now been re-calibrated to such an extent that they are no longer master and servant.
Actors are usually contractually obliged to promote a film, so if they have been forced to sit down with the Mail On Sunday, theIndependent or the New York Times, they obviously want to spend as little time doing it as possible. Occasionally, actors have the balls (or the misguided arrogance) to go against the grain and actually treat the interview as an encumbrance. I once interviewed Miranda Richardson in Blakes Hotel, London, for some film she was promoting and she couldn't have been less engaged. Didn't even pretend. Of course I found the whole thing particularly annoying, and said so in print, but in a way I secretly admired her.
Emma Watson has developed her own shield, naturally, although she acts in a completely charming manner, answering questions both on and off the record with deftness, wit and skill. In fact, she is extremely good company - delightful, really - and professional to a fault. It was less like an interview and more like a meeting, and I don't say that disrespectfully. We were there to do a job, a job that she - at least - did faultlessly.
In the flesh, Watson looks a lot younger than she tends to on film, which made me a little disconcerted, as there were moments when shedidn't look that much older than my eldest daughter, but then I would imagine my reaction is not unusual. The way she looks right now gives her an immense amount of power, which is why she is choosing her post-Potter roles incredibly carefully.
The film she is promoting is The Bling Ring, a true-life tale about a gang of audacious, rich, club-hopping, coke-hoovering Valley kids who stole clothes, cash and jewellery from various Hollywood celebrities - including Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan- motivated by little but vanity and celebrity. Shot in a docudrama style by director Sofia Coppola, Watson is the film's principal star, playing Nicki, a teen with an ex-Playboy model mother, played by Leslie Mann. Coming off the back of a decade of Hermione movies, this is a little like Julie Andrews deciding to play a stripper after appearing in The Sound Of Music, or former child star Natalie Portman appearing in a film about a menacing, sexually charged schizophrenic.
Oh, hold on, she already did that...
Emma - frankly, you couldn't have picked a role more at odds with the role you played in Harry Potter. This was obviously a very deliberate and considered strategy... Well, yes, she is. It's funny, but I actually fought for the role; I really wanted to play it. First of all, I was a big fan of Sofia's. I'm probably the least obvious choice to play the role, as she's the epitome of everything that I am considered not to be.
We're polar opposites. When I read the script and I realised that essentially it was a meditation on fame and what it's become to our society, I had to do it. The character is everything that I felt really strongly against - she's superficial, materialistic, vain, amoral. She's all of these things, and I realised that I really hated her. How do you play someone that you hate? But I found it really interesting and it gave me a whole new insight into what my job, or my role as an actress, could be.
As you say, you couldn't have picked a character that was more different from how people see you. She's sexual, she's subversive and she's involved in criminal behaviour. Were you looking for a part like this? No, I just really wanted to work with Sofia. I met with her, then I found out she had a script, then I read it, liked it, and then I found out she was interested in me for Nicki. I never chose the role, I chose the director. That's really how I've approached all of my career choices thus far. Secondly, it wasn't like I needed to go out there and try to find the furthest part from Hermione so I could get away from her, because that seems like a negative place to jump off from; trying to get away from something rather than trying to get towards something. What I'm trying to get towards is that I want to be a character actress. I want to play parts. I want to play roles that transform me. Nicki seemed like an opportunity to do that.
The character you play was a lap dancer. Was that a stretch for you? Indeed, how much sex is in the film? It doesn't really focus on sex. No. The interesting thing about Nicki is that she uses her sexuality to get her to the places she wants to go, but she isn't actually really interested in sex herself. She's interested as using it as a way of manipulating men.
She's quite cold. She's very focused on where she wants to get herself, in terms of her career, in terms of being famous. It's purely a tool. I did learn to pole dance for the film, and I have a small pole-dancing scene, but it's not a performance for anyone else, it's just me messing around with my friends. I'm not standing on a bar top.
I assume this isn't the sort of thing you get up to at home... Yes. I learnt. I took lessons. When I was preparing for the role I was studying at Oxford, actually [at Worcester College, where she went for a year during her course at Brown]. So I had this surreal experience where I was studying the modernists, writing about Virginia Woolf on Friday night and then driving up to London to take pole-dancing classes on Saturday morning. It was surreal. I went with a friend of mine; she sweetly agreed to come along with me. I was incredibly ungraceful at first. The upper-body strength and the core strength that you need to do it gracefully is crazy I take my hat off to the women who can do it.
You have to be incredibly strong.
A lot of people have been expecting you to... ...do a period drama. I know, everyone wants me to do an English period drama and fit myself into a Jane Austen character or a corset, or a BBC or a Downton Abbey thing. If there was anything that I didn't want to do, that was exactly it. Really, I was open-minded about doing anything, but the one thing I knew I didn't want to do was get myself into a corset because I was worried I'd never get out again. I knew that it would be a really comfortable thing to do, but I felt coming straight out of Harry Potter, I had to dive into something really different. I knew that the first few choices I made post-Potter would give people a steer as to what I might do in the future, so I was pretty specific about no corsets.
This has been a really big departure for me; it's a really big character. The fun thing for me was that I showed my audition tape to my friends. Half of them had their jaw drop, and the rest were just hysterical, laughing, because it was so different. That's so exciting for me, becauseit meant I really was acting.
You have been cocooned for so much of your life, it must have been difficult, nigh impossible, for you to rebel in any way.So in some respects you have had your teenage years torn from you... Have you had a rebellious phase? Have you had the opportunity to do all those things: drinking; drugs; sex? The honest answer is I genuinely haven't really had a rebellious phase. I think it's just because of the way I was brought up. I think it's because I left home when I was ten years old. We went away for two months, we travelled all around England; we went to Newcastle and Durham and Scotland, all over. I was travelling; I was away from home. My parents didn't chaperone me. I think that was a key difference between me and Dan [Radcliffe] and Rupert [Grint]. I didn't have my parents with me; I didn't have a family member.
My parents both worked full time and they didn't want to do that, which I respect. They both really are driven in their careers and as [they] are divorced, if my mum had gone travelling with me, she wouldn't have been there for my brother. It wasn't really a possibility. This is a long-winded way of saying that I was responsible for myself, and being responsible for myself, I knew I was my own backstop. I think I was too afraid. I remember the first day that I got the part, the newspapers were filled with: OK, these are the three chosen kids, let's look at the track records of other child stars and let's see how they fared. There was story after story of drugs, alcohol problems, whatever. I think I was terrified to try drugs, because I had been conditioned to believe that this would be my downfall, if I tried drugs. It seemed like such an obvious thing not to do, not to go down that route. There were just so many examples, example after example after example. I think I was afraid. It just didn't seem like a clever idea to experiment too much when I'd read all these stories as a kid about child actors who went crazy over drugs and alcohol. But I suppose the real answer is that I have just never been very curious about them.
But you were given this golden ticket with enormous freedom. Where does your self-restraint come from? It's really hard to say. I guess what really forms you as a person, is what you do within your family to receive love or attention. In my family, what you had to do to receive attention was to have good conversation at the dinner table or for me to do well at school, and those were really my focuses because that was what was valued the most. I don't think my dad really knew what to do with me, as a daughter. He treated me like a boy; my brother and I were treated the same. He didn't do kid stuff. There were no kid's menus, you weren't allowed to order off the kid's menu at dinner, we had to try something from the adult menu. We'd play tennis, and he'd smack the ball as hard at me as he did with anyone else he played.
As my parents were divorced and they both worked full time, I had to grow up quickly. I guess it made me quite a serious young person.
How have your ambitions changed since you became successful? I think when I was younger I wasn't really sure if I wanted to act, so I played around with a few different ideas. I wasn't sure whether I might want to write or whether I might want to do something in fashion. I wasn't really focused in the same way that Dan was from the get go. His parents [worked in the industry], he went to the theatre, he watched films, he was absolutely set from the beginning: "I'm going to be an actor."
We had maybe four tapes in the whole of our house. My father doesn't watch films, and I'd been taken to the theatre maybe twice on a school trip. I'd always enjoyed acting in school plays, but that just wasn't an ambition that I really thought about. I guess how I've changed is that coming out of Potter I've become more focused. I've zoned in on what I actually want to do, which is act. Recently, particularly with my work for Lancôme, a lot of journalists ask, "Don't you want to design a fashion line or your own perfume?" I've kind of stepped away because I don't want any other distraction.
Surely it couldn't have taken very long for you to realise that after the success of the Potter films, you could turn your hand to anything. If you had said I want to play Godzilla, someone would have found the money to do it. I don't think I do feel like that. I feel like I still have to earn the respect of the directors that I respect to play certain roles. I know that sounds ridiculous, but you have to understand, we made these films in this weird bubble. Leavesden Studios is an aircraft hanger [near] Watford. It's only after the films ended and I remember taking a trip out to LA and my agent saying, "You should really take some meetings, you should go and meet people." It was only then that it really dawned on me, and it was quite overwhelming when it did, but every single studio head of every big studio in Hollywood gave up their time and came and met me personally. You're looking at me sceptically, but I really didn't understand that I had that kind of power. I genuinely didn't. I think my parents were very focused on keeping me down to earth. The biggest compliment I've ever had, getting ready for a premiere or whatever, is that I scrub up all right. I don't know. I didn't fully understand what it all meant. I really didn't have any perspective of it. I was actually just incredibly naive about the whole thing.
One of the interesting things about your success is the fact people say you've been able to handle the amount of fame and attention, and appear to handle it incredibly well. There must have been moments where you could have freaked out. I used to get really frustrated by the child-star stigma that I would get when I spoke to journalists, and I think it's because I lived this very sheltered life, where I'd have a chauffeur come and pick me up to take me to the studios. I'd only see this very specific group of people who I was doing these films with. I'd get back in my car and go home and do the same thing the next day. It was really only once Harry Potter ended and I went to university that it hit me how unusual a position I was in, how different my life could have been.
I found my first couple of years outside of Potter pretty difficult. I struggled to adjust to life outside in a way that I wasn't anticipating.
Did you have stalkers? Yes. I do have people who show up from time to time in different parts of the world. I've never really known how to respond; I've never really known if I should be afraid or not. This is how I put it into perspective: thousands of women all over the world have to deal with feeling afraid when they walk home from the Tube, on their way to work, when they go out for a drink. Feeling not safe isn't something that is singular to me or my experience as a woman, and I don't think any of these people mean me any harm.
They just tend to be people caught up, who don't really realise what they are doing, and I think it is very important that I don't allow it to isolate me further, to be another reason why I shouldn't go out and meet people or walk down the street. Weird guys sometimes take it too far, and that is it. I just keep a friend with me. I don't have a full-time security guard or anything like that. Even at university I went everywhere completely alone, which looking back was probably a pretty ambitious thing that I tried to do there, but somehow I got away with it. There were times when I did feel stressed and anxious and could probably have done with a bit more support. At the same time I would rather make my own mistakes and learn what I need. I think it is so easy when you get famous to just disengage from having a life and that can make some things really dangerous.
Is there someone whose career you look at and think: "I would like to do my career like that"? There are, but it is difficult to find someone who has had a comparative experience to mine. It was eight films that were filmed back-to-back in one franchise. People have in the past compared me to Natalie Portman, and I have said that I would like to emulate her career but really she did a few things in and out.
My experience was back-to-back, eight movies, blockbusters, all encompassing, and it is difficult to find anyone who has had anything quite like that. I really admire Cate Blanchett, I like the choices she has made. Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, those kind of actresses.
Tabloid journalists always assume that you are surrounded by gold-diggers, and that you must find it difficult to find a man. So how does it work, what are the mechanics of you choosing a man? It is a particular context. Generally people I have dated have been friends of friends, or people that I have been in a class with. Someone that I have met under circumstances in which we are equals, so the fame thing doesn't enter the situation. In a classroom it is really just about who has the right answer or who has an interesting discussion point, and in those kinds of conversations and situations everyone is equal. I think that is one of the reasons I like being at university so much. There is no special treatment for me when I sit down in an exam, and the fact that I have done eight Harry Potter films doesn't really come into play.
The worst date I've ever been on was a guy who told me he couldn't be friends with fat people or anyone who was unattractive and I realised pretty quickly that he was a nutter and I had to get out as quickly as I could. The very worst men are those that say, "Are you the girl from Harry Potter?"
I have had my heart broken, though, twice, and I have slapped someone. I was very young. I wouldn't do it again. I'm sorry.
I guess I have developed an instinct for people that aren't fazed by my situation. You either have chemistry or you don't. It becomes much more interpersonal, the relationship you have with that person you either find that you are clicking with them or not.
When did you first start understanding the amounts of money you were earning? My dad told me when I turned 18. I haven't done anything decadent or mad with my money. You look pleadingly at me, you are like, "Please tell me you have done something, please tell me you are not all boring and responsible." But I haven't just bought Mexico or flown from pole to pole and back again; the truth is, I rent a house in London. It was the house I fell in love with and they would not sell it to me. I rented in New York when I was there. I bought a Toyota Prius and I bought myself a laptop. That's kind of it.
Have you developed extravagant taste? The thing is, I am a young person and there are expensive things I can buy but a lot of them are for older women. If I'm a 20-yearold wearingSalvatore Ferragamo from head to toe, I look pretty odd. So I still buy a lot of High Street clothes, not because I choose to buy something cheap, but because I want to look like a young person, I want to look like I am 20. So I am wearing Topshop jeans and a Whistles T-shirt and my little biker boots. My coat is expensive, and I do love beautiful things, don't get me wrong; I can appreciate something that is well crafted and beautiful. I have a weakness for Smythson diaries, I like my Soho planner. My friends are all at university, right? So it instantly makes me different if I trot up with a whatever. Know what I mean? It doesn't help me out on my real agenda, which is to maintain normal friendships with the people I grew up with and want to be around.
AdvertisementYour mother says you have grit and determination, and that's obvious from talking to you, yet you seem to go out of your way to be... normal, centred, un-extraordinary... It is very humbling studying somewhere like Oxford or Brown, and being in a classroom with people I know are much smarter than I am. So I would never think I was entitled to that type of position of privilege or power without having really earned it. I feel like an imposter just being an actress. Just like someone could find me out at any moment. I never studied acting. I am embarrassed that I go to meetings and directors reference films and I haven't seen any of them. I am still just catching up on one particular thing I am interested in. I really believe that you have to earn things. I don't feel comfortable unless I have worked really hard. I worked hard to get Hermione, and my mum has a video I did for the first audition and she has me doing the same take over and over, like 27 times from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon and I was just relentless. I wasn't sure I wanted to act, but I was sure I wanted this part.
What is the worst thing that's been said about you in the press?Will Self said that I would always be to him a nice, middle-class girl but, to be honest, I would rather someone really just detest [me] and think I am horribly boring and stuck up and I don't deserve to be where I am and I have been really lucky and whatever else they want to say, than say that I was nice. I feel like, you know when you go on a terrible date with someone you don't really like, you say it was nice. I would rather people really liked me or really didn't like me, anything other than just being average.
I don't think you should feel aggrieved about anything Will Self says. He just talked about me like I was this tiny, white, fragile, breakable, china doll that didn't really have anything to say, which was wrong because I had talked to him about a lot of things. British men can have a great sense of chivalry and often have great manners. But not all of them... Arrogance and vanity are the worst male characteristics.
The Bling Ring is out on 5 July.