Emma Watson is opening up about how her experience filming the “Harry Potter” franchise shaped her view of the entertainment industry.
During a recent appearance on the “On Purpose” podcast, hosted by Jay Shetty, the 35-year-old actress shared what it was like working on other projects after filming on the eight films in the franchise was completed.
“It’s so unusual to make a set of films for 12 years,” she said. “We were a community, we really were. So I took that as an expectation into my other workplaces, and I got my a– kicked. I really did.”
The actress shot to stardom when she starred as Hermione Granger in the first “Harry Potter” movie at age 11. She went on to play the character in all eight films in the franchise, turning 21 when the final installment was released in 2011.
EMMA WATSON DOESN’T MISS THE ‘SOUL-DESTROYING’ SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD
While filming the franchise over the course of a decade, Watson explained she developed close relationships with her co-stars, and found it to be “bone-breakingly painful” when she moved on to other film sets and realized “most people don’t come to those environments looking for friendships.”
Watson admitted she began to doubt whether she was cut out for Hollywood.
“I’m just not thick-skinned,” she explained. “Maybe I just wasn’t built for those kinds of highly competitive environments. It broke me.”
She became emotional, adding, “But in a way I’m proud that it did, because I guess that means I have something left to break. I have a heart left to break.”
“There’s something that I’m proud of in a way, that there were certain things I couldn’t withstand,” she declared. “I’d much rather keep my humanity.”
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The actress also spoke about her experience as a child star in a recent interview with People, admitting, “In some ways I really won the lottery [with acting],” but that there were parts of the job she couldn’t reconcile with.
After the “Harry Potter” franchise came to an end, Watson starred in a number of successful films, including “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” but chose to step away from acting after starring in the 2019 adaptation of “Little Women.”
“A bigger component than the actual job itself is the promotion and selling of that piece of work, this piece of art,” she explained to the outlet. “The balance of that can get quite thrown off. I think I’ll be honest and straightforward, and say: I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul-destroying.”
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During the “Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts” special on HBO Max, Watson’s co-star, Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the franchise, revealed the actress was thinking about leaving the film series after filming the fourth film.
“I think I was scared,” she told Grint about the immediate fame she experienced, adding, “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.”
Watson and Grint starred alongside Daniel Radcliffe in all eight films in the franchise to play the three lead characters, with Radcliffe playing the main character, Harry Potter.
