Emma Watson Speaks Candidly About Almost Stepping Away From 'The Harry Potter' Series
The cast of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter has assembled for a look back at their experience of being in one of the most popular franchises in history. HBO Max has brought together the Hogwarts alum for a new special, Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, and some of the cast were not shy about how they felt making the series.
Emma Watson gave a particularly interesting insight into her role as Hermione Granger. After the subject of her possibly quitting the mage-hit franchise was brought up by director David Yates, Watson opened up about what she was going through at the time.
I think I was scared. I don't know if you ever felt like it got to a tipping point where you were like, "This is kind of forever now. It was around the time of Order of the Phoenix when things started getting spicy for all of us.
Being famous at such an early age had taken a toll on her personally, but thankfully a loyal fan-base kept her going. Watson continued,
The fame thing had finally hit home - in a big way. No one had to convince me to see it through. The fans genuinely wanted me to succeed, and they all genuinely have each other's backs. How great is that?
Co-star Rupert Grint confirmed what Watson said by sharing his own feelings about life in the spotlight,
I also had sort of similar feelings to Emma, contemplating what life would be like if I called it a day. We never really spoke about it. I guess we were just going through it at our own pace, we were kind of in the moment at the time. It just didn't really occur to us that we were all probably kind of having similar feelings.
Growing up in Hollywood is no easy task for a child actor. Thankfully, as times change and society sees the rigors and stress these young people go through, we will see fewer of these great actors give up because of toxic work environments, especially at such an impressionable time in their lives. We're CERTAINLY glad that Watson and Grint chose to stick it out. (Imagine Harry just suddenly having a new Hermione and Ron in the sixth movie. Weird.)
You can watch the full special Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts streaming now on HBO Max.
