Emma Watson confesses the reason why she stopped working as an actor
Emma Watson has opened up about her decision to quit acting.
The Hollywood star was cast in the Harry Potter film franchise at the age of 10, and has subsequently gone on to work in numerous projects. However, Emma has not appeared on screen since 2019, when she played Meg March in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women.
Now, following confirmation that she has no plans to return to acting, Emma has spoken out about her honest thoughts on the industry.
In an interview with Hollywood Authentic, the 35-year-old described herself as “the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been”.
She continued: “I think what’s interesting about being an actor is, there’s a tendency to sort of fracture yourself into multiple personalities. I’m not just talking about the roles you play, but having the weight of a public persona, that sort of needs constant feeding and sprucing and glamorising. It’s very energy-intensive stuff. And shedding the multiple identities has freed up so much space.”
The child star then went on to note that she “really won the lottery” with her acting career.
“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. I think I’ll be honest and straight-forward, and say: I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul-destroying,” Emma admitted.
“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,” she stated, before addressing if she would like to work behind the camera.
“Yes, I think I’d consider everything. The most important thing, really – or the foundation of your life – is your home and friends and family. 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,” she reflected.
“It felt very courageous at the time. And, if I’m being honest, I was mostly just really afraid and quite scared. But I’m very pleased that it was the right thing,” Emma added.
