Emma Watson Explains Her Break From Acting: "I Think I Felt a Bit Caged"

Emma Watson rose to worldwide fame when she was just 11 years old thanks to her role as Hermione in the Harry Potter franchise. Now, the 33-year-old star is reflecting on some of the disillusionment she’s felt over the course of her many years in the entertainment industry.

“I think I felt a bit caged,” Watson said of her career in an April 29 interview with Financial Times, per Deadline. “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.”

Ultimately, Watson said, she felt like she didn’t have enough control over the work she was doing. “I didn’t have a say,” the actor said. “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.'”

While Watson has been on a hiatus from acting, the star definitely isn’t done with movies – and it sounds like she even has one in the works, as Watson is currently at work on an unannounced project, per Financial Times. The outlet also reported that Watson will begin studying for a master’s degree in creative writing at Oxford this fall.

When it comes down to it, Watson doesn’t want to rush into anything. “I’m happy to sit and wait for the next right thing,” she said. “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 anymore. Does that make sense?”

Aside from her starring role in Harry Potter, Watson has appeared in “Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “The Bling Ring.” Most recently, she starred in Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women,” which premiered in 2019. Meanwhile, Max is at work on producing a Harry Potter TV series, meaning a whole new generation of young stars will soon be following in Watson’s footsteps.

Emma Watson Explains Her Break From Acting: “I Think I Felt a Bit Caged”

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