Emma Watson, widely recognized as Hermione Granger from the beloved Harry Potter series, has opened up about her recent hiatus from acting. While she deeply cherishes the artistic side of filmmaking, Watson admits that she has no fondness for the extensive promotional duties that accompany movies, describing the constant “selling of things” as “quite soul-destroying.”
Speaking to Hollywood Authentic, Watson acknowledged her immense privilege, stating, “In some ways I really won the lottery [with acting], and what happened to me is so unusual.” However, she quickly pointed out a significant challenge: “A bigger component than the actual job itself is the promotion and selling of that piece of work, this piece of art. The balance of that can get quite thrown off.”
She continued with frank honesty: “I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul-destroying. But I do very much miss using my skill-set, and I very much miss the art. I just found I got to do so little of the bit that I actually enjoyed.”
(Image: Emma Watson attending the Venice Film Festival in 2025.)
The 35-year-old actress famously played a starring role in all eight Harry Potter films, which captivated audiences from 2001 to 2011. Following the franchise, she graced the screen in a few other notable projects, including 2012’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower and 2017’s live-action Beauty and the Beast.
Her last role was in 2019’s critically acclaimed film, Little Women. Since then, Watson has been on an extended acting hiatus, a decision she now emphasizes was crucial for reconnecting with her family and friends.
“The most important thing, really — or the foundation of your life — is your home and friends and family,” Watson elaborated. “I think I worked so hard for so long that my life sort of bottomed out. The bottom fell out of the piece, which was actually me and my life. So I needed to go and do some construction work. Some good foundations for anything else to grow from. Because if you don’t have that, there’s a kind of mania that ensues, a kind of panic where you move from one project to the next, kind of terrified of the void in between them.”
(Video placeholder: A review of the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special.)
Watson expressed that she felt “happy and proud” of her decision to step away from acting temporarily, noting that it “felt very courageous at the time.” Since 2019, her only cinematic appearance has been in the 2022 Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special, where she reconnected with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and other beloved Wizarding World cast members.
Reflecting on her craft, Watson shared, “It’s so freeing. I miss that profoundly. But I don’t miss the pressure. I forgot it was a lot of pressure. I did a small thing for a play, just with my friends. I was like, ‘Bloody hell, this is stressful!’ And that wasn’t even for a real public audience or anything. I don’t miss that.”
Regarding her future plans, Watson hinted at a new project but remained tight-lipped about the details, explaining that she’s not currently working on a “linear timeline for anything.”
She concluded, “I’m good. Just been working really hard. I’m working on – actually, I’m not going to say what, because then people are like, ‘Well, when is it happening? What’s going on with this thing?’ So I’m just going to say that I’m working on something that I’ve never done before. So I feel a bit like a person who’s in the dark, stumbling around, looking for the edges of something, and hoping [laughs]. It sounds like I’m trying to find a light switch. But it’s good. That’s the process. That’s the process of making things, isn’t it?”
(Image credit: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty.)