Interview: Emma Watson

Since the first Harry Potter novel was published in 1997, millions upon millions have dreamt of being transported to Potterworld. But what they probably don’t know is that, in reality, it’s only a few miles northwest of central London—part of a former WWII aircraft factory turned movie set called Leavesden Studios. This is where Emma Watson, known around these parts as Hermione Granger, sits, like most days, perched in her trailer, squeezing in a lunch of french fries, as she waits for a shot to be set up in a converted hangar.

For Watson, the series of soundstages, dressing rooms, and art departments—a.k.a. Potterworld—has been both a place of work, and, in many ways, a second home for the last decade. She was handpicked at age 9 to play one of contemporary fiction’s most beloved characters, and since then, she’s been acting opposite

Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) on a grueling, all-consuming filming timetable to unleash the eight installments for an exceedingly hungry, Potter-obsessed public. (To date, the five films that have already been released have grossed more than $4 billion worldwide. The sixth chapter, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, out this summer, is expected to bring that number far higher.) The films that have made Watson famous are not mere child’s play. They can be quite dark, unsettling affairs, which, for Watson’s character, has meant following the progression of a goody-goody little girl with muggle parents (muggle means “unmagical,” for any Potter neophyte left out there) into an over-achieving, articulate young woman who punches villains yet still works a pink ball gown.

This is the online excerpt of the May cover story on Emma Watson by Interview magazine. Interesting.

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