Why The Harry Potter Star Has Disappeared From The Spotlight

We were first introduced to Emma Watson as clever Hogwarts student Hermione Granger in 2001’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” When filming began, she was just 10 years old and had no clue as to how drastically her life was going to change. Emma Watson underwent a stunning transformation over the years as she grew up in front of the camera, eventually being named as Hollywood’s highest-paid female actor in 2010 and landing on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people by 2014.

This level of fame wasn’t easy for Watson to deal with. “I’m under a different microscope, a certain level of scrutiny, which I find really hard at times,” she told Interview Magazine in April 2017. “And sometimes the fear of doing things is overwhelming. I get incredibly overwhelmed, and sometimes feel hemmed in by that, afraid of that,” she said. “But I know that if I live in that fear, then my life as an artist, as a human being, really, is over.” She continued her upward trajectory for a few years, but she eventually faded out of the spotlight. Here’s why you don’t hear from Emma Watson anymore.

Given that Emma Watson, along with her co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, became huge movie stars when they were just children, it’s no wonder that they experienced some relief when “Harry Potter” wrapped once and for all. Watson, who was ready to quit the film franchise before the fifth installment, especially appreciated the sudden flexibility in her daily life. As she once told Entertainment Weekly, “I have such a structure when I’m working on ‘Potter.’ I get told what time I get picked up. I get told what time I can eat, when I have time to go to the bathroom. Every single second of my day is not in my power.”

As intense as it all could be at times, the “Harry Potter” films also had a positive impact on Watson. In a November 2021 Instagram post, she celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first movie by expressing how much the franchise meant to her. She wrote, “‘Harry Potter’ was my home, my family, my world. … I think a journalist once said it was irritating how many times during an interview I mentioned how lucky I was and started counting… BUT I DAMN WELL KNEW!!! And still know.”

By the time “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” hit theaters, Emma Watson was unfortunately no stranger to being subjected to a creepy and inappropriate side of fame as a female child actor. She was being sexualized at every turn, including the online countdown ticking to the moment she turned 18 in 2008 and would be considered to have reached the age of consent in America.

During a HeForShe press conference back in 2016, Watson remarked (via Cosmopolitan), “On my 18th birthday … photographers laid down on the pavement and took photographs up my skirt, which were then published on the front of the English tabloid [newspapers]. … If they had published the photographs 24 hours earlier they would have been illegal, but because I had just turned 18 they were legal.”

What’s more, there’ve been many headlines that tried to paint Watson’s post-“Potter” roles as far more scandalous than they actually are. As she told The Times in July 2016, “I’m 25 now. … Me kissing somebody else shouldn’t be risqué or horrifying, but I think that will continue for a long time. There have been lots of advantages to being part of that franchise, and playing that role for a long time, but inevitably there are obstacles and that’s one of them.”

For over a decade, “Harry Potter” was everything to Emma Watson. She spent a significant part of her childhood in front of the camera, and when the franchise started wrapping up after so many years, the actor finally had the opportunity to dive into higher education. “I think that there’s always time for me to work, I hope,” she told Urbanette. “But this is the time of my life when I need to really study and learn more about myself and the world around me. This was a really important thing to do and I’m really, really glad that I made the time for it.”

Watson first enrolled at Brown University in 2009 to study English literature, but took a year off from her studies in 2011. She continued filming the final “Harry Potter” movies during this time, but she still managed to graduate after five years in 2014. As she told Elle at the time, “So many people told me it wasn’t possible. I kept saying, ‘I don’t care.’ This is what I want. And graduating will, for me, be really symbolic of all of that. I will be there. And I will be throwing a huge party. And getting very drunk.”

In order to deal with some of the weight of fame Emma Watson suddenly had to deal with, she put an extraordinary amount of effort into activism, embodying her “Harry Potter” character even more. In speaking with British Vogue in December 2019, she explained, “I feel uncomfortable taking up as much space as I’m taking up and not speaking about [politics and social justice]. It just doesn’t feel right anymore.” However, where Hermione Granger advocated for the fair treatment of house-elves in the book series, Watson has fought tirelessly for gender equality for many years.

In 2014, she was appointed as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and helped form HeForShe, a campaign that promoted gender equality. In addition, the “Harry Potter” star got involved with humanitarian efforts, spending time in Bangladesh and Zambia. She also became an ambassador for Camfed International, a nonprofit that promotes access to education for girls in Africa.

By the end of the “Harry Potter” films, Emma Watson was ready to say goodbye to Hermione. She bid the character farewell once and for all by cutting her hair short and pivoting toward the world of indie film.

Her second role following her departure from “Harry Potter” was as Sam in the feature film adaptation of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” During an August 2012 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Watson described her emotional connection to the scene from the movie in which she stands in the back of a truck with her arms outstretched as it drives through a tunnel. “I started as Emma with some Hermione still left in my system. I went through the tunnel and I came out ready to start something new,” she said.

There were other roles that proved to be challenging for Watson, including the character Nicki in 2013’s “The Bling Ring.” As she said to Empire Magazine in July 2013, “I definitely had my qualms about Nicki, but I think that’s what’s so cool about my job, is that I had to find a way to empathize. I had to find a way to understand who she was and what her motivation was coming from.”