"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"
"My Week with Marilyn"
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower"
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"
"Trésor Midnight Rose" for Lancôme
"Pure Threads" by Emma Watson and Alberta Ferretti
"Love from Emma" for People Tree Spring/Summer
A life after Harry Potter
Growing up in a cult film series has left and indelible yet not life-defining impact on Emma Watson, Helen Barlow writes.
The greatest shock in seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is to notice how much the young actors have grown up. In fact, the fifth instalmnet is no longer a kids' movie, but a teen drama about characters who are rapidly coming of age.
In real life the three prinipals are maturing faster than their characters, with Daniel Radcliffe even appearing nude on the London stage. Rupert Grint's chest seems to be getting broaders and his voice deeper and deeper, while Emma Watson is broadening her mind and fashion sense and looking more womanly every day. She's now on the covers of magazines, appearing very grown up indeed and, as with most things, she is asserting a level of control.
"In interviews lik this and when I'm working on Harry Potter I can dress myself, but the stylists on those shoots have strong views of what they want you to look like," she says in London. "So sometimes it's a bit of a battle between what they want you to be and what I really am, so I'm like, 'Please take off the eyeliner' or 'Please don't put me in those awful shoes', or whatever it is."
Does she think of herself as glamorous?
"I can be if I want to be. I love dressing up, but it doesn't rule or dictate my life."
Growing up in front of the cameras is never easy and being a part of one of the most successful franchises in film history has meant Watson's life is not entirely her own. Take her hair, which is blonde; she tried to get it back to its natural colour and today it's streaked.
"I don't know how much of it is natural anu more but this is sort of naturally my colour," she says tugging at her long golden locks.
But nothing prepared her for watching herself in the new film, which includes flashbacks to the previous movies.
It's just like having your baby pictures blown up on a 20-foot (six meter) screen and placed in 37 countries. It's sort of your worst nightmare. It's scary to see how we've all changed. You see yourself and you say, 'God, who is that girl?'"
The girl in question, whose adoring fans even have a website counting down to her 18th birthday in April, today looks older than in the movie, which was filmed last year. She appears relaxed in baggy Diesal jeans, her own lacy black top, a simple soft cardigan - which turns out to be Chanel - and Dolce & Gabbana pumps, which she is wearing so easily she can easily slip into the v-necked Alberta Ferretti dress for a photocall. She dones a double-stringed gold and beaded Chanel necklace for the cameras.
To her credit, Watson arrives at our interview unattended. While this might not seem out of the ordinary, for a young female star to arrive without a phalanx of publicists and image creators, make-up artists and general dogsbodies these days, is highly unusual.
"I prefer to feel like I'm handling the questions myself," she says in her clipped British tones. And then annoynces: "Let's spice it up a bit! Let's get a couple of difficult ones. I'm quite happy to answer them." She pauses for a moment realising that she had just said. "You're going to ask me some bitch of a question, you really are! Bad idea. I should never have said that."
Not old enought to attend nightclubs and with little time for letting loose, the charmingly natural actor hardly has any dirt on her as yet, and will surely never be a Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears.
"You either choose to have you first cigarette and your first glass of wine in a safe environment with your close friends or you can choose to do it in a nightclub in the middle of London. You can actually live a low-key, normal life where the press don't get a chance to know about it."
Clearly today, though, Watson hankers to be a little provocative so I ask her abou the prospect of kissing Grint, her suitor in the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Princes, which starts filming in September. Director David Yates describes it as being about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.
"Kissing Rupert's going to be sooo awkward," Watson says screwing up her cute rosy-cheecked face. "I'm trying not to think about it ... it's all part of the job I guess. Don't tell him I said that. Rupert's lovely. Girls would probably give their left arm to be in my position, so I'm certainly not complaining."
But he's a grunge-loving dude and simply not the kind of boy she's into.
"No, he's not my type," she says.
What is she looking for in a guy? "I love someone who can make me laugh ... who makes me feel I can be myself around them. Confidence is good; arrogance is not. Someone I can really talk to, who doesn't bore me, is genuine, just interesting. Someone I can relax with."
Her list is lone. "It's bad, isn't it? You have such high expectations. The other way you can look at it is that if I list a lot of attributes, then I'm sort of widening my scope. You don't have to have all the attributes - just one or two will suffice."
The offspringe of British lawyer parents, Watson spent her first five years growing up in Paris, and has made regular trips there since. "I went over to Paris to sort out the clothes for this junket and I have a great nostalgia for it. I really love it. It feels a bit like home."
The main reason for her regular Parisian jaunts has been to visit her French grandmother. So it was fun to go for herself this time, to visit the house of Chanel.
"Chanel have been very kind and have lent me a lot of stuff for this particular junket. I've always loved how classice and how beautiful their clothing is and how original. My mum always wore Chanel, but I love other designers too. I think Chloe is great. Alberta Ferretti is really lovely, Agnes B has some younger funky stuff whcih I really like. Converse shoes are great."
Watson had never acted before Harry Potter came along. "I was extrememly naive and in a way, it was good to be really nervous. I cam to realise that Maggie Smith was a pretty good actress, she was just really nice to me. I wouldn't have been able to come to the set if I didn't feel completely safe.
As with all young actors, she brough a lot of herself to Hermione. "We're bother feminists, we're both very stubborns, very determined and quite loyal. If I have a friend then I stay through to the end." (She maintinas a tight group of friends from school and considers her two co-stars brothers.) "Obviously I'm a bit geeky, a bit nerdy like she is, underneath is all - we both love school. I love to learn."
Recently rumours were flying that Watson would not return for the last two films, as she was concerned for her studies. (At school she studies English literature and she would like to persue a combined degree of English literature and psychology at university.) She now says she was taking her time to work out her contract so she can do bother. When Harry Potter is over she's keen to continue acting, too.
"I think Emma could have a great career," says Yates. "If she's smart enough to choose the right material she could be fantastic. We have seen a fraction of what she's capable of yet."
Watson says she wants to find something she really believes in. "What I will do next will be really anticipates and will be taken as the direction I'm going to go in. So I feel that pressure," she says.
Radcliffe has been quite clear about going against his Harry Potter image by making his West End debut in the cirically laued Equus, which made headlines because of his full-frontal nudity. The pressure for actresses to disrobe is of course greater.
"If I feel that nudity is essential to the story I'll do it," says Watson. "But I'm not going to be getting my kit off for something that I don't really believe in." Was she surprised by Radcliffe's disrobing? "Yes of course! I just sort of went, 'You're mad, absolutely mad!' But when I went to see it I was blown away."
As for the future, Watson is learning to drive. Eventually she says she would like to buy a house - and hang a lot of artwork on the walls.
"It's quite hard to imagine my life without Harry Potter; ot's sort of hard to remember my life before. It's sort of completely taken over my life. I say that, but I've worked hard to make sure that hasn't happened. While obviously it's a huge part of me, it doesn't define me. I know who I am aside from this. But it feels strange that one day it will be over. In a way though I feel it will never be over ... the books will always be loved and the films will come on every Christmas and it'll keep living on in kids' imaginations and adults' imagination for many years to come."