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Thursday 30 April 2009
Valli show video.
http://www.gala.fr/lifestyle_de_star/mode/en_direct_des_podiums/fashion_week_natalie_portman_fan_de_giambattista_valli
Full interview with Derek Blasberg.
THE COFFEE BREAK:EMMA WATSON NEWS
GRAB A CUP OF YOUR FAVORITE BREW, COFFEE THAT IS, AND CATCH UP ON THE MOST RECENT EMMA WATSON NEWS AND GOSSIP.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2009
Emma Watson- the full "Interview"
Here's the whole "Interview" interview. The first part was already posted on the Interview website. I typed up the second half so all typos belong to me! Hopefully scans to follow, I'm working on a better photo section so hopefully it won't take me long. They are gorgeous photographs.
DEREK BLASBERG: I can’t believe that was your very first football match ever. What have you been doing your whole life?
EMMA WATSON: Oh, I don’t know. I did these little films that no one’s ever heard of. Just a fewindependents.
BLASBERG: And I hear you just hosted your first-ever dinner party last night. How did that go?
WATSON: Well, it was a disaster. Not because I’m a terrible cook, but because the time limit was too short. I was only able to make half the pie—a cottage pie, which is this very British beef mince meal—so I had to abandon it.
BLASBERG: Was this one of those situations where you wish you had a magic wand?
WATSON: Oh, my god. That is the first time in the whole course of my knowing you that you’ve resorted to making a bad Harry Potter joke. This is a sad moment. But, yes, I ran out of time. It was like MasterChef in my kitchen last night, a really stressful atmosphere . . .
BLASBERG: With sweat dripping down your nose, and you panting heavily?
WATSON: Exactly. But as a debutante foray into entertaining, I aced it.
BLASBERG: What a weekend of firsts: first dinner party, first football game. What else?
WATSON: First time I worked with [photographer] Nick Knight. He was very nice, very English.
BLASBERG: Do you prefer working with an English team? When I visited you on the Harry Potter set, the majority of people were Englishmen.
WATSON: Well, I shouldn’t say I have a favorite director—that wouldn’t be very diplomatic. But one of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Watson in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban (2004)]. I have a real thing forMexican directors. And I loveGuillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BLASBERG: Is that why you were in Mexico earlier this year?WATSON: I went because I wanted to travel and I had heard such great things about the country.I didn’t get to see any of those guys.
BLASBERG: Of course not. A young girl in Mexico means spring break! Cancún, baby! Tequila shots at Señor Frogs!
WATSON: That was the weirdest place ever. In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie. I was only there for two days—thankfully my friends and I were more interested in traveling around other parts of the country. But I seriously thought it was only like that in movies.
BLASBERG: When I was in high school, we went to Mexico for spring break, and it was surreal. Like, school nerds entering wet-T-shirt contests, and high-school jocks screwing the secretly slutty goth theater girls.
WATSON: It’s so exciting.
BLASBERG: This is what you missed while you were doing Harry Potter, Emma.
WATSON: I know. I feel so deprived. But Cancún was certainly not my favorite. We went to Ixtapa, where the ruins are. It was a beautiful, chilled-out part of the country. We went to Mexico City, which was amazing, but quite dangerous. We were happy to get out of there in the end. And we went to Cuba—I would tell everyone to go to Cuba now, because in 10 years it will be completely different.
BLASBERG: Do you like to travel?
WATSON: Yes, and that’s where the films have helped. With Harry Potter, I’ve been all over the world. I probably wouldn’t have gone to New York so young if it weren’t for the films. I was 11, and I remember it distinctly because it was just after 9/11. I was at ground zero, looking at this gallery that had messages and drawings all over the walls.
BLASBERG: That’s heavy stuff for an 11-year-old.
WATSON: Yeah, it was. I remember one of the producers gave this great speech while we were there, saying that maybe the reason Harry Potter was so successful, particularly then, was because people really wanted to be uplifted or taken to another place.
BLASBERG: I find it intriguing that you started this journey when you were 9. How did you even know about the books?
WATSON: My dad used to read them to me before I went to bed and while on long car journeys.
BLASBERG: So then you just went to an open call?
WATSON: No, there was no open audition—they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools. They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.
BLASBERG: What happened between that gym photo and the first day of shooting?
WATSON: It was a long time—eight auditions . . .
BLASBERG: Did you meet any of the other girls who were going out for the parts?
WATSON: Yes! I won’t say the name, but there was this girl who had already done a film before. I can remember just crumbling at the sight of her, thinking, “She’s been in a film before, and she knows how to do this. I have no chance.” Even worse, one time I came to the studios, and she was there playing cards with one of the other boys auditioning for Harry—not Daniel Radcliffe. And I was like, “Oh, my god, they’re making friends already! I’m definitely not going to get it.” I was so, so upset.
BLASBERG: I bet those two have pictures of you and Daniel Radcliffe on their dartboards now.
WATSON: Probably. But I wanted it so badly.
BLASBERG: Why? Because you wanted to be in movies and be famous, or because you identified with that role?
WATSON: I loved the books—I was a massive fan. I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know that sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew. At the beginning, they were casting the other characters as well—but I always knew I was going out for Hermione. She came so naturally to me. Maybe so much of myself at the time was similar to her. Of course, all this terrified my parents—there were literally thousands and thousands of girls going out for the audition, and my parents were anxious about what I would do if I didn’t get it.
BLASBERG: I’m sure they were like, “What are we going to get her if she doesn’t make it? A pony?”
WATSON: They were trying to make me stay realistic—but I wasn’t having any of it. I was going to get that part. This is a sweet thing: My dad did a roast on a Sunday, and he gave me the wishbone, and I obviously made the wish that I would get this role. I still have that wishbone upstairs in my jewelry box.
BLASBERG: It’s been a pretty effective good-luck charm. And now you’re not only doing movies, you’ve become chums with Karl Lagerfeld. How is that friendship going?
WATSON: I’d met Karl a few times before, at parties or something where we really couldn’t talk.
But this was a dream come true. We spent the whole day together, and he can talk about anything—literature, art, science, modern culture. I was totally seduced. I felt spoiled to be spending so much time with him.
BLASBERG: Now that you’ve made a little bit of money, are you spending it all on fashion?
WATSON: I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often. When I’m in a situation where I do need to dress up, I’mtypically lent something—which means I have to give it back at midnight, like Cinderella.
BLASBERG: What was your first big splurge when the Potter money came in?
WATSON: Hmm . . . I got myself a laptop. I took my dad to Tuscany. He works so hard, my dad, so I rang up his secretary and asked when he was free, and I booked us a holiday. What else? Oh, I got myself a car.
BLASBERG: I saw the car. I think it’s very good that Hermione Granger drives a Prius.
WATSON: I got my license last year, and I love the Prius, even if my friends say it’s ugly. They say I drive a brick. And, to be fair, it’s not the prettiest car on the road, but it’s good for the environment. It’s sensible and boring—like me.
BLASBERG: It’s polite and efficient, like you.
WATSON: Yes, I am the Prius of my peer group.
BLASBERG: You’ve said previously that after the Harry Potter films are done you’re not sure you’ll continue to be a full-time actress. I personally thought that comment got a lot of unwarranted criticism. When I was 9, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be forever, I would have said a pirate, or a fire engine. Can you imagine if someone held me to that?
WATSON: Ha! I was a little bit shocked by people’s responses, too. Maybe it’s because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever? But I guess I just want to be sure it’s what I want. I was so young, and I don’t think I really knew the greatness of what I was signing on for. I really want to study. I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now—I’m sure I’ll still be here in 10 years, making Harry Potter 30.
BLASBERG: Maybe you could play Hermione’s mom?
WATSON: Oh, don’t! That would be so cringe! Don’t you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?
BLASBERG: Not only that, it’s probably tiring being Hermione. I was on the set with you, and those are long, long days. What time are you there every morning?
WATSON: At the moment, we’re there at about 6:30 a.m., which means I’m picked up at about 5:45 a.m. We’re filming both the seventh and eighth movies at once, and I’m trying to do all of my scenes now and through the summer so I’ll be available for university come September—though it already looks like I’ll be working on Christmas and March breaks.
BLASBERG: In these next two films, are most of your scenes with Dan and Rupert?
WATSON: Yes. In the last book, they’ve left Hogwarts, and they’re traveling around together. It feels right that it started with the three of us and it’s ending with the three of us. It’s about our friendship.
BLASBERG: How are you with those young men off set? Are you friends?
WATSON: To be honest, we see so much of each other when we’re working that hanging out together would be overload. I love them, but I need to see other friends off set. They’re like my siblings now.
BLASBERG: You three have this weird shared experience, though. There’s no one else who will truly know what it was like to grow up in these roles, in this franchise, in this sudden fame, like the three of you do.
WATSON: I completely agree with that, but we’re three different people, too. We will always be very important to each other. But, at the same time, after eight Harry Potter films, we’ll be ready to go and do other things, and be other people, and have time for ourselves.
BLASBERG: Can you imagine that last day of shooting?
WATSON: I can’t. I will be . . . uncontrollable. It’s been half of our lives. It’s made us, it’s formed us. It’s such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad—and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family.
BLASBERG: Like your lovely driver, Nigel.
WATSON: Yes, I love Nigel! You know, he drove me to that first audition, and he’s been drivingme ever since. He’s like my best friend—he knows everything about my life. If you have to sit in the car with someone for two hours a day, you had better like him! I get very jealous when he drives someone else.
BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?
WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.
BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?
WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.
BLASBERG: What are you going to study?
WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.
BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.
WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.
BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?
WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.
BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?
WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you really have to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. As much as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.
Blasberg: Were you accepted as a kid in school? Just your average muggle?
Watson: When I moved to my new school, it took a while for people to realize that I was a real person, that I’m normal. Basically, they got bored of me after a couple of weeks. I didn’t get bullied or pushed against lockers or anything. The school that I went to was very academic, and the girls were very focused on their grades- they had ambitions of their own.
Blasberg: Do you really want to be a nerd again? You want to spend hours in the library, wearing dirty clothes, and lugging around an ugly backpack instead of a Chanel bag?
Watson: Yes. I want to be stressed about deadlines. I want to cycle around campus on a little bicycle. I miss the smell of books. I miss my pencil case and ring binders. I want it all back.
Blasberg: Seeing you on the set with that giant Hermione hair was a trip. I bet you’ll be happy to see those extensions go. Did the film make any other changes?
Watson: Hermione was meant to have big brown bushy hair and buck teeth. The bushy hair that you saw was obtained by loads of back-combing and teasing, but at the beginning they did try to give me false teeth, which I couldn’t speak with. So the buck teeth had to go.
Blasberg: Looking back now, that decision was actually quit fortuitous.
Watson: I know. And they tried to give Dan contacts- because Harry has green eyes and Dan has blue eyes. But, again, like I suffered with fake buck teeth, putting contact lenses in an 11-year-old boy’s eyes every day wasn’t easy.
Blasberg: But these are small details.
Watson: Yes, but I probably shouldn’t be saying them. Everyone seems to have forgotten these kinds of inaccuracies, ad the now the fans will be going, “Oh, yeah, they did such a rubbish job.” These are those fans-the ones who come up to me and ask me wildly specific questions about the books that I don’t know…And I’m pretty good at Potter trivia.
Blasberg: Tell the truth: Would you really be okay with this one part defining your whole acting career? Like, earlier in the car, I told you about Mayim Bialik, the girl who played Blossom on the hit TV show in America in the 90’s, and then gave everything up to study neuroscience at UCLA. You’re really okay with only being Hermione if you find something like to do more at a university?
Watson: I can honestly see myself both ways. Option one being that I go to university and go down a different path. But there are things I love about this industry too.
Blasberg: It’s a hard question to answer now.
Watson: I’ve always juggled things, so I don’t feel like I have to chose at all. It’s not a binary thing. It’s not one or the other. You can make a film in 6 weeks- just not a Harry Potter film.
Blasberg: You’re not the first actress to go to college. DO you think, if you continue in film, you’ll have trouble making the transition from Hermione to other roles?
Watson: It will be hard for people to detach me from Harry Potter. I’m so identified with Hermione, and people have watched me grow up in that role. I think it’s difficult to choose the right parts, and I think it will be hard to pick the next role after this one. But I like the challenge.
Blasberg: Until then, are you still happy going to a film set every day, instead of doing the whole typical teenage things like football games, dance clubs, and Sunday dinners?
Watson: Of coarse there have been times when I’ve thought it was unfair that I didn’t make it to a friend’s birthday or a sleepover because I had different responsibilities than most people my age. But I wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s made me who I am, and there are so many things that have come from it.
Blasberg: You’re probably the only 19-year-old girl in London who will be in bed at 9 p.m. this weekend, though.
Watson: Tell me about it. Having a bedtime is hard to explain to my friends. Most of my friends are on their gap year right now, so they’re in Thailand at a moon party dancing on a beach and getting drunk and being young.
Blasberg: Are all your young friends actors and entertainment people too?
Watson- It’s a real mix. My roommate is a model, but most of my other friends are working at bars and clubs and on their gap year. A lot of my friends work at this club back in Oxford called the Kukui, so if I want to catch up with them, I have to go sit in the cloakroom with them for a couple of hours.
Blasberg-: I like the idea you’re content to be good and go home early, because you’re aware of the greater importance . Like, if you go out tonight and show up late tomorrow, you’re not messing up your career or your image- you’re screwing with something much bigger. I’ve met young people in similar situations-early fame, lots of money, easy access, temptation at their fingertips. But you’ve been responsible and decidedly mature. It’s admirable.
Watson-: Harry Potter has inspired so many people. I get these amazing letters from mothers whose children began to love reading because of these books, or a heartbreaking tale from an ill person who pulled through with Harry Potter. I meet people every day who are genuinely filled with excitement of these characters- that’s totally what makes the 5:45 a.m. pickup okay.
Blasberg: Besides, Ems, if you screwed around with Hermione, you wouldn’t be able to leave this apartment.
Watson: Can you imagine? [shivers] I would have to become a hermit.
__________________
GRAB A CUP OF YOUR FAVORITE BREW, COFFEE THAT IS, AND CATCH UP ON THE MOST RECENT EMMA WATSON NEWS AND GOSSIP.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2009
Emma Watson- the full "Interview"
Here's the whole "Interview" interview. The first part was already posted on the Interview website. I typed up the second half so all typos belong to me! Hopefully scans to follow, I'm working on a better photo section so hopefully it won't take me long. They are gorgeous photographs.
DEREK BLASBERG: I can’t believe that was your very first football match ever. What have you been doing your whole life?
EMMA WATSON: Oh, I don’t know. I did these little films that no one’s ever heard of. Just a fewindependents.
BLASBERG: And I hear you just hosted your first-ever dinner party last night. How did that go?
WATSON: Well, it was a disaster. Not because I’m a terrible cook, but because the time limit was too short. I was only able to make half the pie—a cottage pie, which is this very British beef mince meal—so I had to abandon it.
BLASBERG: Was this one of those situations where you wish you had a magic wand?
WATSON: Oh, my god. That is the first time in the whole course of my knowing you that you’ve resorted to making a bad Harry Potter joke. This is a sad moment. But, yes, I ran out of time. It was like MasterChef in my kitchen last night, a really stressful atmosphere . . .
BLASBERG: With sweat dripping down your nose, and you panting heavily?
WATSON: Exactly. But as a debutante foray into entertaining, I aced it.
BLASBERG: What a weekend of firsts: first dinner party, first football game. What else?
WATSON: First time I worked with [photographer] Nick Knight. He was very nice, very English.
BLASBERG: Do you prefer working with an English team? When I visited you on the Harry Potter set, the majority of people were Englishmen.
WATSON: Well, I shouldn’t say I have a favorite director—that wouldn’t be very diplomatic. But one of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Watson in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban (2004)]. I have a real thing forMexican directors. And I loveGuillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BLASBERG: Is that why you were in Mexico earlier this year?WATSON: I went because I wanted to travel and I had heard such great things about the country.I didn’t get to see any of those guys.
BLASBERG: Of course not. A young girl in Mexico means spring break! Cancún, baby! Tequila shots at Señor Frogs!
WATSON: That was the weirdest place ever. In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie. I was only there for two days—thankfully my friends and I were more interested in traveling around other parts of the country. But I seriously thought it was only like that in movies.
BLASBERG: When I was in high school, we went to Mexico for spring break, and it was surreal. Like, school nerds entering wet-T-shirt contests, and high-school jocks screwing the secretly slutty goth theater girls.
WATSON: It’s so exciting.
BLASBERG: This is what you missed while you were doing Harry Potter, Emma.
WATSON: I know. I feel so deprived. But Cancún was certainly not my favorite. We went to Ixtapa, where the ruins are. It was a beautiful, chilled-out part of the country. We went to Mexico City, which was amazing, but quite dangerous. We were happy to get out of there in the end. And we went to Cuba—I would tell everyone to go to Cuba now, because in 10 years it will be completely different.
BLASBERG: Do you like to travel?
WATSON: Yes, and that’s where the films have helped. With Harry Potter, I’ve been all over the world. I probably wouldn’t have gone to New York so young if it weren’t for the films. I was 11, and I remember it distinctly because it was just after 9/11. I was at ground zero, looking at this gallery that had messages and drawings all over the walls.
BLASBERG: That’s heavy stuff for an 11-year-old.
WATSON: Yeah, it was. I remember one of the producers gave this great speech while we were there, saying that maybe the reason Harry Potter was so successful, particularly then, was because people really wanted to be uplifted or taken to another place.
BLASBERG: I find it intriguing that you started this journey when you were 9. How did you even know about the books?
WATSON: My dad used to read them to me before I went to bed and while on long car journeys.
BLASBERG: So then you just went to an open call?
WATSON: No, there was no open audition—they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools. They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.
BLASBERG: What happened between that gym photo and the first day of shooting?
WATSON: It was a long time—eight auditions . . .
BLASBERG: Did you meet any of the other girls who were going out for the parts?
WATSON: Yes! I won’t say the name, but there was this girl who had already done a film before. I can remember just crumbling at the sight of her, thinking, “She’s been in a film before, and she knows how to do this. I have no chance.” Even worse, one time I came to the studios, and she was there playing cards with one of the other boys auditioning for Harry—not Daniel Radcliffe. And I was like, “Oh, my god, they’re making friends already! I’m definitely not going to get it.” I was so, so upset.
BLASBERG: I bet those two have pictures of you and Daniel Radcliffe on their dartboards now.
WATSON: Probably. But I wanted it so badly.
BLASBERG: Why? Because you wanted to be in movies and be famous, or because you identified with that role?
WATSON: I loved the books—I was a massive fan. I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know that sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew. At the beginning, they were casting the other characters as well—but I always knew I was going out for Hermione. She came so naturally to me. Maybe so much of myself at the time was similar to her. Of course, all this terrified my parents—there were literally thousands and thousands of girls going out for the audition, and my parents were anxious about what I would do if I didn’t get it.
BLASBERG: I’m sure they were like, “What are we going to get her if she doesn’t make it? A pony?”
WATSON: They were trying to make me stay realistic—but I wasn’t having any of it. I was going to get that part. This is a sweet thing: My dad did a roast on a Sunday, and he gave me the wishbone, and I obviously made the wish that I would get this role. I still have that wishbone upstairs in my jewelry box.
BLASBERG: It’s been a pretty effective good-luck charm. And now you’re not only doing movies, you’ve become chums with Karl Lagerfeld. How is that friendship going?
WATSON: I’d met Karl a few times before, at parties or something where we really couldn’t talk.
But this was a dream come true. We spent the whole day together, and he can talk about anything—literature, art, science, modern culture. I was totally seduced. I felt spoiled to be spending so much time with him.
BLASBERG: Now that you’ve made a little bit of money, are you spending it all on fashion?
WATSON: I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often. When I’m in a situation where I do need to dress up, I’mtypically lent something—which means I have to give it back at midnight, like Cinderella.
BLASBERG: What was your first big splurge when the Potter money came in?
WATSON: Hmm . . . I got myself a laptop. I took my dad to Tuscany. He works so hard, my dad, so I rang up his secretary and asked when he was free, and I booked us a holiday. What else? Oh, I got myself a car.
BLASBERG: I saw the car. I think it’s very good that Hermione Granger drives a Prius.
WATSON: I got my license last year, and I love the Prius, even if my friends say it’s ugly. They say I drive a brick. And, to be fair, it’s not the prettiest car on the road, but it’s good for the environment. It’s sensible and boring—like me.
BLASBERG: It’s polite and efficient, like you.
WATSON: Yes, I am the Prius of my peer group.
BLASBERG: You’ve said previously that after the Harry Potter films are done you’re not sure you’ll continue to be a full-time actress. I personally thought that comment got a lot of unwarranted criticism. When I was 9, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be forever, I would have said a pirate, or a fire engine. Can you imagine if someone held me to that?
WATSON: Ha! I was a little bit shocked by people’s responses, too. Maybe it’s because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever? But I guess I just want to be sure it’s what I want. I was so young, and I don’t think I really knew the greatness of what I was signing on for. I really want to study. I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now—I’m sure I’ll still be here in 10 years, making Harry Potter 30.
BLASBERG: Maybe you could play Hermione’s mom?
WATSON: Oh, don’t! That would be so cringe! Don’t you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?
BLASBERG: Not only that, it’s probably tiring being Hermione. I was on the set with you, and those are long, long days. What time are you there every morning?
WATSON: At the moment, we’re there at about 6:30 a.m., which means I’m picked up at about 5:45 a.m. We’re filming both the seventh and eighth movies at once, and I’m trying to do all of my scenes now and through the summer so I’ll be available for university come September—though it already looks like I’ll be working on Christmas and March breaks.
BLASBERG: In these next two films, are most of your scenes with Dan and Rupert?
WATSON: Yes. In the last book, they’ve left Hogwarts, and they’re traveling around together. It feels right that it started with the three of us and it’s ending with the three of us. It’s about our friendship.
BLASBERG: How are you with those young men off set? Are you friends?
WATSON: To be honest, we see so much of each other when we’re working that hanging out together would be overload. I love them, but I need to see other friends off set. They’re like my siblings now.
BLASBERG: You three have this weird shared experience, though. There’s no one else who will truly know what it was like to grow up in these roles, in this franchise, in this sudden fame, like the three of you do.
WATSON: I completely agree with that, but we’re three different people, too. We will always be very important to each other. But, at the same time, after eight Harry Potter films, we’ll be ready to go and do other things, and be other people, and have time for ourselves.
BLASBERG: Can you imagine that last day of shooting?
WATSON: I can’t. I will be . . . uncontrollable. It’s been half of our lives. It’s made us, it’s formed us. It’s such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad—and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family.
BLASBERG: Like your lovely driver, Nigel.
WATSON: Yes, I love Nigel! You know, he drove me to that first audition, and he’s been drivingme ever since. He’s like my best friend—he knows everything about my life. If you have to sit in the car with someone for two hours a day, you had better like him! I get very jealous when he drives someone else.
BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?
WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.
BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?
WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.
BLASBERG: What are you going to study?
WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.
BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.
WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.
BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?
WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.
BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?
WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you really have to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. As much as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.
Blasberg: Were you accepted as a kid in school? Just your average muggle?
Watson: When I moved to my new school, it took a while for people to realize that I was a real person, that I’m normal. Basically, they got bored of me after a couple of weeks. I didn’t get bullied or pushed against lockers or anything. The school that I went to was very academic, and the girls were very focused on their grades- they had ambitions of their own.
Blasberg: Do you really want to be a nerd again? You want to spend hours in the library, wearing dirty clothes, and lugging around an ugly backpack instead of a Chanel bag?
Watson: Yes. I want to be stressed about deadlines. I want to cycle around campus on a little bicycle. I miss the smell of books. I miss my pencil case and ring binders. I want it all back.
Blasberg: Seeing you on the set with that giant Hermione hair was a trip. I bet you’ll be happy to see those extensions go. Did the film make any other changes?
Watson: Hermione was meant to have big brown bushy hair and buck teeth. The bushy hair that you saw was obtained by loads of back-combing and teasing, but at the beginning they did try to give me false teeth, which I couldn’t speak with. So the buck teeth had to go.
Blasberg: Looking back now, that decision was actually quit fortuitous.
Watson: I know. And they tried to give Dan contacts- because Harry has green eyes and Dan has blue eyes. But, again, like I suffered with fake buck teeth, putting contact lenses in an 11-year-old boy’s eyes every day wasn’t easy.
Blasberg: But these are small details.
Watson: Yes, but I probably shouldn’t be saying them. Everyone seems to have forgotten these kinds of inaccuracies, ad the now the fans will be going, “Oh, yeah, they did such a rubbish job.” These are those fans-the ones who come up to me and ask me wildly specific questions about the books that I don’t know…And I’m pretty good at Potter trivia.
Blasberg: Tell the truth: Would you really be okay with this one part defining your whole acting career? Like, earlier in the car, I told you about Mayim Bialik, the girl who played Blossom on the hit TV show in America in the 90’s, and then gave everything up to study neuroscience at UCLA. You’re really okay with only being Hermione if you find something like to do more at a university?
Watson: I can honestly see myself both ways. Option one being that I go to university and go down a different path. But there are things I love about this industry too.
Blasberg: It’s a hard question to answer now.
Watson: I’ve always juggled things, so I don’t feel like I have to chose at all. It’s not a binary thing. It’s not one or the other. You can make a film in 6 weeks- just not a Harry Potter film.
Blasberg: You’re not the first actress to go to college. DO you think, if you continue in film, you’ll have trouble making the transition from Hermione to other roles?
Watson: It will be hard for people to detach me from Harry Potter. I’m so identified with Hermione, and people have watched me grow up in that role. I think it’s difficult to choose the right parts, and I think it will be hard to pick the next role after this one. But I like the challenge.
Blasberg: Until then, are you still happy going to a film set every day, instead of doing the whole typical teenage things like football games, dance clubs, and Sunday dinners?
Watson: Of coarse there have been times when I’ve thought it was unfair that I didn’t make it to a friend’s birthday or a sleepover because I had different responsibilities than most people my age. But I wouldn’t change it for anything. It’s made me who I am, and there are so many things that have come from it.
Blasberg: You’re probably the only 19-year-old girl in London who will be in bed at 9 p.m. this weekend, though.
Watson: Tell me about it. Having a bedtime is hard to explain to my friends. Most of my friends are on their gap year right now, so they’re in Thailand at a moon party dancing on a beach and getting drunk and being young.
Blasberg: Are all your young friends actors and entertainment people too?
Watson- It’s a real mix. My roommate is a model, but most of my other friends are working at bars and clubs and on their gap year. A lot of my friends work at this club back in Oxford called the Kukui, so if I want to catch up with them, I have to go sit in the cloakroom with them for a couple of hours.
Blasberg-: I like the idea you’re content to be good and go home early, because you’re aware of the greater importance . Like, if you go out tonight and show up late tomorrow, you’re not messing up your career or your image- you’re screwing with something much bigger. I’ve met young people in similar situations-early fame, lots of money, easy access, temptation at their fingertips. But you’ve been responsible and decidedly mature. It’s admirable.
Watson-: Harry Potter has inspired so many people. I get these amazing letters from mothers whose children began to love reading because of these books, or a heartbreaking tale from an ill person who pulled through with Harry Potter. I meet people every day who are genuinely filled with excitement of these characters- that’s totally what makes the 5:45 a.m. pickup okay.
Blasberg: Besides, Ems, if you screwed around with Hermione, you wouldn’t be able to leave this apartment.
Watson: Can you imagine? [shivers] I would have to become a hermit.
__________________
Unwerth shoot update
http://www.slide.com/r/oFAMDP6k4j90P0rGQpHeZvW6IwQVfo6K?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original
Wednesday 29 April 2009
Emma as burberry ambassador.
London, England (CNS) - Emma Watson is the new face of Burberry ProrsumAutumn/Winter 2009 collection, it has been revealed. The teenage actress has reportedly signed a six-figure deal with the British fashion label earlier this year.
According to the Daily Mail, the Harry Potter starlet was due to be photographed for the autumn/winter 2009 campaign in London last weekend. However, the 19-year-old didn't like the idea when she was told she would be photographed alongside a group of girls.
"Emma was always supposed to be the leading lady, so when she found out it was girls she was in the campaign with, she put her foot down and had them removed from the line-up. She now stars in the campaign alongside four hunky men," a source revealed the Mail.
According to the Daily Mail, the Harry Potter starlet was due to be photographed for the autumn/winter 2009 campaign in London last weekend. However, the 19-year-old didn't like the idea when she was told she would be photographed alongside a group of girls.
"Emma was always supposed to be the leading lady, so when she found out it was girls she was in the campaign with, she put her foot down and had them removed from the line-up. She now stars in the campaign alongside four hunky men," a source revealed the Mail.
New interview.
What is Hermione's big moment and big sequence in the sixth film?
WATSON: There's this mean girl called Lavender who has a bit of a crush on Ron. It's leaked in the beginning of the film that Hermione and Ron are finally going to get it together, and then she steps in. Hermione is sensitive and quite mean, really. And it's very much about how she sort of despises Lavender. Not really because she's taken Ron away, but because she's kind of the opposite of Hermione. So it's very comic and also quite sad for her. It's very Ron based, her part.
Do you think the fans of the book will find "Half-Blood Prince" to be a faithful adaptation?
WATSON: I hope so. I think we've stuck as close as we possibly can without making a ten-hour movie. We've never had that complaint before, and I personally am such a big fan of the books. I've read them each of them three or four times so I think that's a really good focus for us.
When you look back at the making of this film, what do you think you might remember from it?
WATSON: What really stuck out for me was Ron's Quidditch scene. It was so funny. Rupert's comic timing is just brilliant and he's so funny. There's this great scene where Hermione and Lavender are fighting over Ron, and we had a bit of fun with that. With Dumbledore's death scene it was absolutely freezing that night and it was a very sad scene, really.
WATSON: There's this mean girl called Lavender who has a bit of a crush on Ron. It's leaked in the beginning of the film that Hermione and Ron are finally going to get it together, and then she steps in. Hermione is sensitive and quite mean, really. And it's very much about how she sort of despises Lavender. Not really because she's taken Ron away, but because she's kind of the opposite of Hermione. So it's very comic and also quite sad for her. It's very Ron based, her part.
Do you think the fans of the book will find "Half-Blood Prince" to be a faithful adaptation?
WATSON: I hope so. I think we've stuck as close as we possibly can without making a ten-hour movie. We've never had that complaint before, and I personally am such a big fan of the books. I've read them each of them three or four times so I think that's a really good focus for us.
When you look back at the making of this film, what do you think you might remember from it?
WATSON: What really stuck out for me was Ron's Quidditch scene. It was so funny. Rupert's comic timing is just brilliant and he's so funny. There's this great scene where Hermione and Lavender are fighting over Ron, and we had a bit of fun with that. With Dumbledore's death scene it was absolutely freezing that night and it was a very sad scene, really.
Tuesday 28 April 2009
Emma Watson Top girl interview online translated.
YOU CAN’T DO THE LAUNDRY WITH A MAGIC WAND!
Here it is why Hermione still lives with her mum and dad. Fresh nineteen, ten years on the big screen, Hogwart’s little witch is all grown up. But, even though she’s been under the spotlight in her toughest years, she DID NOT lose her bearings hanging around clubs and then going to rehab (like Lindsay Lohan), she DID NOT get herself photographed naked and then published on the internet (Vanessa Hudgens and Miley Cyrus), she DID NOT change dresses and boyfriends every night (Paris Hilton) taking a chance to have unwanted children and early lose dignity and panties (Britney Spears). A good girl X-ray. How long will she be?
Even though the most glamour event she attended recently it was just the Paris Fashion Week, even though the most paparazzi can expect is to catch her outside a theatre with her friends, despite all of this, we never lack for gossips about Emma Watson’s boyfriend: “I have not the right to have a male friend anymore, i must have a love affair with every guy i go out with. One day they photograph me with Daniel (Radcliffe), another day with a friend of mine (Jonny Borrell, Razorlight guitarist), and all of them, really, are supposed to be my lovers according to the tabloids. I count up on readers’ cleverness.”. The only affair she admitted, the one with Joel (a guy not in the industry), is over now and Emma Watson declares herself single: “It’s so hard to find a knight with a bright armour. And maybe girls don’t even know what they want. When i date someone i act like i’m an independent woman, perhaps i’ll settle the bill. But then i’ll regret it, because in the end i love gallantries.”
On April 24th, the animated feature “Le Avventure del topino Despereaux”, where Emma has voiced a princess, will be released in italian theatres. I meet her in Los Angeles for the film promotion: blue shirt, skirt and pumps.
From Hermione’s magic to Despereaux Princess..
I recorded all alone, in a dark studio and it has been really hard sometimes. There are scenes where the Princess has been kidnapped: it takes a lot of immagination efforts to get inside the character. It’s not as it is in Harry Potter set, where i can enjoy action scenes, the moments i like the most.
Half-Blood Prince is set to release on this July. You start shooting the last one in February which will be released in two different parts. And then, what’s up to you next?
I don’t know when shooting will finish, but in the autumn i’m going to university, still don’t know where i’m going to attend (on Twitter, a social network, a fake Emma’s account has been created. Her only official space is on Friendster, managed by her dad and an assistant, but Emma doesn’t talk about it).
You didn’t quit school even if you’ve been busy with these films for years.
I think it would be crazy if i didn’t: it kept me in touch with the real world. Every time a shooting schedule got completed i got back to my friends and normal life. I think all of this has helped me stay grounded: school and, of course, my family.
You often told you wanted to keep other opportunities open, other than your acting career. Has it been hard for you to decide what you want to be?
Maybe i hesitated longer than Daniel and Rupert. They always knew they want to be actors. For me it’s been different: i was nine and i was a massive fan of the books, and those producers came to my school during our theatre hour, to audition us. Three weeks later they called me for another audition and later i got the part. All of this with no lessons, without knowing i wanted to be an actress, jut memorizing my part. But just because such a crazy thing happened to me doesn’t mean it was the right thing for me. At least, that’s what i always thought. Now i realize that probably it is and that, if not an actress, i’d pick another equally weird career. A normal job wouldn’t suit me. I could be a painter, i paint in oils and enjoy it.
Has someone of your family pushed you to carry on this way?
My parents are lawyers, all my family is made of scholars and nobody has never been passionate about cinema. When I was a child we didn’t see movies at home, I had to do a crash course on my own and start watching everything I had lost. I didn’t know Gary Oldman and Maggie Smith (two movie legends that respectively play Sirius Black and Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series) My parents’ job, however, has helped me very much: they have been able to manage all the economic and concrete aspects of what I do and advice me for best.
Here is a thing i’d like to ask you, recently you attended a business administration course. Was this an advice of your parents too?
No, it was my choice. It was a 4 day course, I turned 18 and I didn’t know what to do with my money. I don’t keep them on my account to spend them, it would be very stupid, I don’t need it now. I still live with my family.
This is also a choice which distinguish you from the other stars. Have you ever wished to be free, live on your own?
Are you kidding? I hate to do the laundry, and I get along really well with my parents. During the shootings, however, I decided to rent a flat to get closer to the studios. It was too stressing going back and forth after a demanding day.
What do you like to spend your money for?
I have never bought anything really expensive. Wait, no,: a hybrid car, a Prius, when I took my licence, and a laptop. These were my big purchases, even if someone took me too seriously when I said I wrote family allowance for my brothers. I want to say it straight out that it’s not true, my parents take care of them.
Have you ever bought something on a whim?
Actually, I like to be with my friends, doing what normal peple do, besides none of them has the money that I have. So we spend our nights out at the cinema, or dining out in some place not too much expensive.
Robert Pattinson, leading actor in “Twilight“, played Cedric Diggory in the films of the Harry Potter saga. Did you keep in touch with him?
No, I don’t have his number but I’d like to send him a message to tell him that is stealing my fans! They say Twilight is going to be the next Harry Potter, and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable about that… wait a minute, we’re still here!
You have been at the Paris Fashion Week. Do you feel kile a fashion victim? How do you like to dress?
It depends if I have to be elegant or casual, but I don’t dislike follow the fashion. Among the stylists I really like classical ones like Balenciaga and Chanel, while if I want to dress comfortable I prefer to mix vintage pieces with Gap or Zara clothing.
Do you feel the need to be beautiful all the times for the ubiquitous paparazzi?
I don’t want to lie: I feel so much like I have to be. But I like it, because I enjoy to express myself with the fashion and I hope that this feeling never ends. It would be bad if i wake up one day and feeling bother looking at my full closet!
Here it is why Hermione still lives with her mum and dad. Fresh nineteen, ten years on the big screen, Hogwart’s little witch is all grown up. But, even though she’s been under the spotlight in her toughest years, she DID NOT lose her bearings hanging around clubs and then going to rehab (like Lindsay Lohan), she DID NOT get herself photographed naked and then published on the internet (Vanessa Hudgens and Miley Cyrus), she DID NOT change dresses and boyfriends every night (Paris Hilton) taking a chance to have unwanted children and early lose dignity and panties (Britney Spears). A good girl X-ray. How long will she be?
Even though the most glamour event she attended recently it was just the Paris Fashion Week, even though the most paparazzi can expect is to catch her outside a theatre with her friends, despite all of this, we never lack for gossips about Emma Watson’s boyfriend: “I have not the right to have a male friend anymore, i must have a love affair with every guy i go out with. One day they photograph me with Daniel (Radcliffe), another day with a friend of mine (Jonny Borrell, Razorlight guitarist), and all of them, really, are supposed to be my lovers according to the tabloids. I count up on readers’ cleverness.”. The only affair she admitted, the one with Joel (a guy not in the industry), is over now and Emma Watson declares herself single: “It’s so hard to find a knight with a bright armour. And maybe girls don’t even know what they want. When i date someone i act like i’m an independent woman, perhaps i’ll settle the bill. But then i’ll regret it, because in the end i love gallantries.”
On April 24th, the animated feature “Le Avventure del topino Despereaux”, where Emma has voiced a princess, will be released in italian theatres. I meet her in Los Angeles for the film promotion: blue shirt, skirt and pumps.
From Hermione’s magic to Despereaux Princess..
I recorded all alone, in a dark studio and it has been really hard sometimes. There are scenes where the Princess has been kidnapped: it takes a lot of immagination efforts to get inside the character. It’s not as it is in Harry Potter set, where i can enjoy action scenes, the moments i like the most.
Half-Blood Prince is set to release on this July. You start shooting the last one in February which will be released in two different parts. And then, what’s up to you next?
I don’t know when shooting will finish, but in the autumn i’m going to university, still don’t know where i’m going to attend (on Twitter, a social network, a fake Emma’s account has been created. Her only official space is on Friendster, managed by her dad and an assistant, but Emma doesn’t talk about it).
You didn’t quit school even if you’ve been busy with these films for years.
I think it would be crazy if i didn’t: it kept me in touch with the real world. Every time a shooting schedule got completed i got back to my friends and normal life. I think all of this has helped me stay grounded: school and, of course, my family.
You often told you wanted to keep other opportunities open, other than your acting career. Has it been hard for you to decide what you want to be?
Maybe i hesitated longer than Daniel and Rupert. They always knew they want to be actors. For me it’s been different: i was nine and i was a massive fan of the books, and those producers came to my school during our theatre hour, to audition us. Three weeks later they called me for another audition and later i got the part. All of this with no lessons, without knowing i wanted to be an actress, jut memorizing my part. But just because such a crazy thing happened to me doesn’t mean it was the right thing for me. At least, that’s what i always thought. Now i realize that probably it is and that, if not an actress, i’d pick another equally weird career. A normal job wouldn’t suit me. I could be a painter, i paint in oils and enjoy it.
Has someone of your family pushed you to carry on this way?
My parents are lawyers, all my family is made of scholars and nobody has never been passionate about cinema. When I was a child we didn’t see movies at home, I had to do a crash course on my own and start watching everything I had lost. I didn’t know Gary Oldman and Maggie Smith (two movie legends that respectively play Sirius Black and Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter series) My parents’ job, however, has helped me very much: they have been able to manage all the economic and concrete aspects of what I do and advice me for best.
Here is a thing i’d like to ask you, recently you attended a business administration course. Was this an advice of your parents too?
No, it was my choice. It was a 4 day course, I turned 18 and I didn’t know what to do with my money. I don’t keep them on my account to spend them, it would be very stupid, I don’t need it now. I still live with my family.
This is also a choice which distinguish you from the other stars. Have you ever wished to be free, live on your own?
Are you kidding? I hate to do the laundry, and I get along really well with my parents. During the shootings, however, I decided to rent a flat to get closer to the studios. It was too stressing going back and forth after a demanding day.
What do you like to spend your money for?
I have never bought anything really expensive. Wait, no,: a hybrid car, a Prius, when I took my licence, and a laptop. These were my big purchases, even if someone took me too seriously when I said I wrote family allowance for my brothers. I want to say it straight out that it’s not true, my parents take care of them.
Have you ever bought something on a whim?
Actually, I like to be with my friends, doing what normal peple do, besides none of them has the money that I have. So we spend our nights out at the cinema, or dining out in some place not too much expensive.
Robert Pattinson, leading actor in “Twilight“, played Cedric Diggory in the films of the Harry Potter saga. Did you keep in touch with him?
No, I don’t have his number but I’d like to send him a message to tell him that is stealing my fans! They say Twilight is going to be the next Harry Potter, and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable about that… wait a minute, we’re still here!
You have been at the Paris Fashion Week. Do you feel kile a fashion victim? How do you like to dress?
It depends if I have to be elegant or casual, but I don’t dislike follow the fashion. Among the stylists I really like classical ones like Balenciaga and Chanel, while if I want to dress comfortable I prefer to mix vintage pieces with Gap or Zara clothing.
Do you feel the need to be beautiful all the times for the ubiquitous paparazzi?
I don’t want to lie: I feel so much like I have to be. But I like it, because I enjoy to express myself with the fashion and I hope that this feeling never ends. It would be bad if i wake up one day and feeling bother looking at my full closet!
Watson's double.
One of the first things you notice wandering around the outskirts-of-London set of 'Potter'? There are twice the number of main characters. Each lead has a stand-in, and they look so strikingly similar (and are also sporting identical costumes), it's easy to confuse them at any distance. "It's weird," Grint admits. "And they all sit together at lunchtime!" Emma Watson even admits she wishes she could send her body double to education classes in her place. The only problem? "She's like 24, something like that," Watson says.
Monday 27 April 2009
Interview Mag May 2009.
Emma Watson
By Derek Blasberg
Photography Nick Knight
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 centralLondon—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)intoan over-achieving, articulate young woman who punches villains yet still works a pink ball gown.
While Watson has committed her formative years to thisLeavesden Studios set, she doesn’t seem to resent that she’s had to trade slumber parties, nightclubs, and football games for rehearsal, filming, and premieres. Although now that she’s finally an adult, the 19-year-old has started to steer her own ship (or, in Watson’s case, the Prius she bought last year). She recently moved out of the family home and into a London duplex she shares with a roommate (its proximity to Potterworld was a deciding factor in the choice of location). She’s picked up an interest in high fashion (and a new fan in Karl Lagerfeld, who recently photographed her for a magazine--see photos here). And, most interestingly (at least to celebrity rags), she’s considering leaving the U.K. this fall to start school at an Ivy League in the U.S. She’s even suggested that her acting career may end when Potter does.
Watson’s life is suddenly falling off-script—but it’s definitely not falling apart. What little naïveté she does possess revolves mostly around her own sense of celebrity. Sure, she acknowledges paparazzi outside of a restaurant, but she is completely unaware of the perks. She once asked me if it would be possible to get her a ticket to a fashion show in Paris—little did she know that the designer’s PR would have picked her up in a helicopter if they had known she wanted to attend. I’ve waited for a table with her at her favorite Mexican dive in Covent Garden, London. I’ve taken her to concerts in Brooklyn clubs that were carpeted in empty beer cans. And once we played pool in a London pub frequented by big hairy gay men in leather chaps. She seems to be just as happy outside of Potterworld as she is working in the center of it. As expected, her schedule is ridiculous: Days are meticulously planned, call times are often before sunrise, and she’s Hermione for entire days that turn into entire weeks. Unlike most English girls, Watson had never been to a traditional football match. So, the day after my visit to Potterworld, we took in a Chelsea vs. Manchester City game. Afterward, we went back to her apartment, which is on the top two floors of a row house. Despite the fact that Watson hosted a dinner party the night before, the place was tidy. She proceeded to make tea and jammed toast as we sat down to talk about Potter, Hogwarts and all.
DEREK BLASBERG: I can’t believe that was your very first football match ever. What have you been doing your whole life?
EMMA WATSON: Oh, I don’t know. I did these littlefilms that no one’s ever heard of. Just a fewindependents.
BLASBERG: And I hear you just hosted your first-ever dinner party last night. How did that go?
WATSON: Well, it was a disaster. Not because I’m a terrible cook, but because the time limit was too short. I was only able to make half the pie—a cottage pie, which is this very British beef mince meal—so I had to abandon it.
BLASBERG: Was this one of those situations where you wish you had a magic wand?
WATSON: Oh, my god. That is the first time in the whole course of my knowing you that you’ve resorted to making a bad Harry Potter joke. This is a sad moment. But, yes, I ran out of time. It was like MasterChef in my kitchen last night, a really stressful atmosphere . . .
BLASBERG: With sweat dripping down your nose, and youpanting heavily?
WATSON: Exactly. But as a debutante foray into entertaining, I aced it.
BLASBERG: What a weekend of firsts: first dinner party, first football game. What else?
WATSON: First time I worked with [photographer] Nick Knight. He was very nice, very English.
BLASBERG: Do you prefer working with an English team? When I visited you on the Harry Potter set, the majority of people were Englishmen.
WATSON: Well, I shouldn’t say I have a favorite director—that wouldn’t be very diplomatic. But one of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Watson in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban (2004)]. I have a real thing forMexican directors. And I loveGuillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BLASBERG: Is that why you were in Mexico earlier this year?
WATSON: I went because I wanted to travel and I had heard such great things about the country.I didn’t get to see any of those guys.
BLASBERG: Of course not. A young girl in Mexico means spring break! Cancún, baby! Tequila shots at Señor Frogs!
WATSON: That was the weirdest place ever. In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie. I was only there for two days—thankfully my friends and I were more interested in traveling around other parts of the country. But I seriously thought it was only like that in movies.
BLASBERG: When I was in high school, we went to Mexico for spring break, and it was surreal. Like, school nerds entering wet-T-shirt contests, and high-school jocks screwing the secretly slutty goth theater girls.
WATSON: It’s so exciting.
BLASBERG: This is what you missed while you were doing Harry Potter, Emma.
WATSON: I know. I feel so deprived. But Cancún was certainly not my favorite. We went to Ixtapa, where the ruins are. It was a beautiful, chilled-out part of the country. We went to Mexico City, which was amazing, but quite dangerous. We were happy to get out of there in the end. And we went to Cuba—I would tell everyone to go to Cuba now, because in 10 years it will be completely different.
BLASBERG: Do you like to travel?
WATSON: Yes, and that’s where the films have helped. With Harry Potter, I’ve been all over the world. I probably wouldn’t have gone to New York so young if it weren’t for the films. I was 11, and I remember it distinctly because it was just after 9/11. I was at ground zero, looking at this gallery that had messages and drawings all over the walls.
BLASBERG: That’s heavy stuff for an 11-year-old.
WATSON: Yeah, it was. I remember one of the producers gave this great speech while we were there, saying that maybe the reason Harry Potter was so successful, particularly then, was because people really wanted to be uplifted or taken to another place.
BLASBERG: I find it intriguing that you started this journey when you were 9. How did you even know about the books?
WATSON: My dad used to read them to me before I went to bed and while on long car journeys.
BLASBERG: So then you just went to an open call?
WATSON: No, there was no open audition—they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools. They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.
BLASBERG: What happened between that gym photo and the first day of shooting?
WATSON: It was a long time—eight auditions . . .
BLASBERG: Did you meet any of the other girls who were going out for the parts?
WATSON: Yes! I won’t say the name, but there was this girl who had already done a film before. I can remember just crumbling at the sight of her, thinking, “She’s been in a film before, and she knows how to do this. I have no chance.” Even worse, one time I came to the studios, and she was there playing cards with one of the other boys auditioning for Harry—not Daniel
Radcliffe. And I was like, “Oh, my god, they’re making friends already! I’m definitely not going to get it.” I was so, so upset.
BLASBERG: I bet those two have pictures of you and Daniel Radcliffe on their dartboards now.
WATSON: Probably. But I wanted it so badly.
BLASBERG: Why? Because you wanted to be in movies and be famous, or because you identified with that role?
WATSON: I loved the books—I was a massive fan. I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know that sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew. At the beginning, they were
casting the other characters as well—but I always knew I was going out for Hermione. She came so naturally to me. Maybe so much of myself at the time was similar to her. Of course, all this terrified my parents—there were literally thousands and thousands of girls going out for the audition, and my parents were anxious about what I would do if I didn’t get it.
BLASBERG: I’m sure they were like, “What are we going to get her if she doesn’t make it? A pony?”
WATSON: They were trying to make me stay realistic—but I wasn’t having any of it. I was going to get that part. This is a sweet thing: My dad did a roast on a Sunday, and he gave me the wishbone, and I obviously made the wish that I would get this role. I still have that wishbone upstairs in my jewelry box.
BLASBERG: It’s been a pretty effective good-luck charm. And now you’re not only doing movies, you’ve become chums with Karl Lagerfeld. How is that friendship going?
WATSON: I’d met Karl a few times before, at parties or something where we really couldn’t talk. But this was a dream come true. We spent the whole day together, and he can talk about anything—literature, art, science, modern culture. I was totally seduced. I felt spoiled to be spending so much time with him.
BLASBERG: Now that you’ve made a little bit of money, are you spending it all on fashion?
WATSON: I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often. When I’m in a situation where I do need to dress up, I’m
typically lent something—which means I have to give it back at midnight, like Cinderella.
BLASBERG: What was your first big splurge when the Potter money came in?
WATSON: Hmm . . . I got myself a laptop. I took my dad to Tuscany. He works so hard, my dad, so I rang up his secretary and asked when he was free, and I booked us a holiday. What else? Oh, I got myself a car.
BLASBERG: I saw the car. I think it’s very good that Hermione Granger drives a Prius.
WATSON: I got my license last year, and I love the Prius, even if my friends say it’s ugly. They say I drive a brick. And, to be fair, it’s not the prettiest car on the road, but it’s good for the environment. It’s sensible and boring—like me.
BLASBERG: It’s polite and efficient, like you.
WATSON: Yes, I am the Prius of my peer group.
BLASBERG: You’ve said previously that after the Harry Potter films are done you’re not sure you’ll continue to be a full-time actress. I personally thought that comment got a lot of unwarranted criticism. When I was 9, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be forever, I would have said a pirate, or a fire engine. Can you imagine if someone held me to that?
WATSON: Ha! I was a little bit shocked by people’s responses, too. Maybe it’s because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever? But I guess I just want to be sure it’s what I want. I was so young, and I don’t think I really knew the greatness of what I was signing on for. I really want to study. I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now—I’m sure I’ll still be here in 10 years, making Harry Potter 30.
BLASBERG: Maybe you could play Hermione’s mom?
WATSON: Oh, don’t! That would be so cringe! Don’t you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?
BLASBERG: Not only that, it’s probably tiring being Hermione. I was on the set with you, and those are long, long days. What time are you there every morning?
WATSON: At the moment, we’re there at about 6:30 a.m., which means I’m picked up at about 5:45 a.m. We’re filming both the seventh and eighth movies at once, and I’m trying to do all of my scenes now and through the summer so I’ll be available for university come September—though it already looks like I’ll be working on Christmas and March breaks.
BLASBERG: In these next two films, are most of your scenes with Dan and Rupert?
WATSON: Yes. In the last book, they’ve left Hogwarts, and they’re traveling around together. It feels right that it started with the three of us and it’s ending with the three of us. It’s about our friendship.
BLASBERG: How are you with those young men off set? Are you friends?
WATSON: To be honest, we see so much of each other when we’re working that hanging out together would be overload. I love them, but I need to see other friends off set. They’re like my siblings now.
BLASBERG: You three have this weird shared experience, though. There’s no one else who will truly know what it was like to grow up in these roles, in this franchise, in this sudden fame, like the three of you do.
WATSON: I completely agree with that, but we’re three different people, too. We will always be very important to each other. But, at the same time, after eight Harry Potter films, we’ll be ready to go and do other things, and be other people, and have time for ourselves.
BLASBERG: Can you imagine that last day of shooting?
WATSON: I can’t. I will be . . . uncontrollable. It’s been half of our lives. It’s made us, it’s formed us. It’s such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad—and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family.
BLASBERG: Like your lovely driver, Nigel.
WATSON: Yes, I love Nigel! You know, he drove me to that first audition, and he’s been drivingme ever since. He’s like my best friend—he knows everything about my life. If you have to sit in the car with someone for two hours a day, you had better like him! I get very jealous when he drives someone else.
BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?
WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.
BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?
WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.
BLASBERG: What are you going to study?
WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.
BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.
WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.
BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?
WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele,
Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.
BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?
WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you reallyhave to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. Asmuch as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.
This is an excerpt of the May cover story. To read the full Emma Watson interview pick up a copy of Interview.
By Derek Blasberg
Photography Nick Knight
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 centralLondon—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)intoan over-achieving, articulate young woman who punches villains yet still works a pink ball gown.
While Watson has committed her formative years to thisLeavesden Studios set, she doesn’t seem to resent that she’s had to trade slumber parties, nightclubs, and football games for rehearsal, filming, and premieres. Although now that she’s finally an adult, the 19-year-old has started to steer her own ship (or, in Watson’s case, the Prius she bought last year). She recently moved out of the family home and into a London duplex she shares with a roommate (its proximity to Potterworld was a deciding factor in the choice of location). She’s picked up an interest in high fashion (and a new fan in Karl Lagerfeld, who recently photographed her for a magazine--see photos here). And, most interestingly (at least to celebrity rags), she’s considering leaving the U.K. this fall to start school at an Ivy League in the U.S. She’s even suggested that her acting career may end when Potter does.
Watson’s life is suddenly falling off-script—but it’s definitely not falling apart. What little naïveté she does possess revolves mostly around her own sense of celebrity. Sure, she acknowledges paparazzi outside of a restaurant, but she is completely unaware of the perks. She once asked me if it would be possible to get her a ticket to a fashion show in Paris—little did she know that the designer’s PR would have picked her up in a helicopter if they had known she wanted to attend. I’ve waited for a table with her at her favorite Mexican dive in Covent Garden, London. I’ve taken her to concerts in Brooklyn clubs that were carpeted in empty beer cans. And once we played pool in a London pub frequented by big hairy gay men in leather chaps. She seems to be just as happy outside of Potterworld as she is working in the center of it. As expected, her schedule is ridiculous: Days are meticulously planned, call times are often before sunrise, and she’s Hermione for entire days that turn into entire weeks. Unlike most English girls, Watson had never been to a traditional football match. So, the day after my visit to Potterworld, we took in a Chelsea vs. Manchester City game. Afterward, we went back to her apartment, which is on the top two floors of a row house. Despite the fact that Watson hosted a dinner party the night before, the place was tidy. She proceeded to make tea and jammed toast as we sat down to talk about Potter, Hogwarts and all.
DEREK BLASBERG: I can’t believe that was your very first football match ever. What have you been doing your whole life?
EMMA WATSON: Oh, I don’t know. I did these littlefilms that no one’s ever heard of. Just a fewindependents.
BLASBERG: And I hear you just hosted your first-ever dinner party last night. How did that go?
WATSON: Well, it was a disaster. Not because I’m a terrible cook, but because the time limit was too short. I was only able to make half the pie—a cottage pie, which is this very British beef mince meal—so I had to abandon it.
BLASBERG: Was this one of those situations where you wish you had a magic wand?
WATSON: Oh, my god. That is the first time in the whole course of my knowing you that you’ve resorted to making a bad Harry Potter joke. This is a sad moment. But, yes, I ran out of time. It was like MasterChef in my kitchen last night, a really stressful atmosphere . . .
BLASBERG: With sweat dripping down your nose, and youpanting heavily?
WATSON: Exactly. But as a debutante foray into entertaining, I aced it.
BLASBERG: What a weekend of firsts: first dinner party, first football game. What else?
WATSON: First time I worked with [photographer] Nick Knight. He was very nice, very English.
BLASBERG: Do you prefer working with an English team? When I visited you on the Harry Potter set, the majority of people were Englishmen.
WATSON: Well, I shouldn’t say I have a favorite director—that wouldn’t be very diplomatic. But one of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Watson in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban (2004)]. I have a real thing forMexican directors. And I loveGuillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BLASBERG: Is that why you were in Mexico earlier this year?
WATSON: I went because I wanted to travel and I had heard such great things about the country.I didn’t get to see any of those guys.
BLASBERG: Of course not. A young girl in Mexico means spring break! Cancún, baby! Tequila shots at Señor Frogs!
WATSON: That was the weirdest place ever. In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie. I was only there for two days—thankfully my friends and I were more interested in traveling around other parts of the country. But I seriously thought it was only like that in movies.
BLASBERG: When I was in high school, we went to Mexico for spring break, and it was surreal. Like, school nerds entering wet-T-shirt contests, and high-school jocks screwing the secretly slutty goth theater girls.
WATSON: It’s so exciting.
BLASBERG: This is what you missed while you were doing Harry Potter, Emma.
WATSON: I know. I feel so deprived. But Cancún was certainly not my favorite. We went to Ixtapa, where the ruins are. It was a beautiful, chilled-out part of the country. We went to Mexico City, which was amazing, but quite dangerous. We were happy to get out of there in the end. And we went to Cuba—I would tell everyone to go to Cuba now, because in 10 years it will be completely different.
BLASBERG: Do you like to travel?
WATSON: Yes, and that’s where the films have helped. With Harry Potter, I’ve been all over the world. I probably wouldn’t have gone to New York so young if it weren’t for the films. I was 11, and I remember it distinctly because it was just after 9/11. I was at ground zero, looking at this gallery that had messages and drawings all over the walls.
BLASBERG: That’s heavy stuff for an 11-year-old.
WATSON: Yeah, it was. I remember one of the producers gave this great speech while we were there, saying that maybe the reason Harry Potter was so successful, particularly then, was because people really wanted to be uplifted or taken to another place.
BLASBERG: I find it intriguing that you started this journey when you were 9. How did you even know about the books?
WATSON: My dad used to read them to me before I went to bed and while on long car journeys.
BLASBERG: So then you just went to an open call?
WATSON: No, there was no open audition—they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools. They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.
BLASBERG: What happened between that gym photo and the first day of shooting?
WATSON: It was a long time—eight auditions . . .
BLASBERG: Did you meet any of the other girls who were going out for the parts?
WATSON: Yes! I won’t say the name, but there was this girl who had already done a film before. I can remember just crumbling at the sight of her, thinking, “She’s been in a film before, and she knows how to do this. I have no chance.” Even worse, one time I came to the studios, and she was there playing cards with one of the other boys auditioning for Harry—not Daniel
Radcliffe. And I was like, “Oh, my god, they’re making friends already! I’m definitely not going to get it.” I was so, so upset.
BLASBERG: I bet those two have pictures of you and Daniel Radcliffe on their dartboards now.
WATSON: Probably. But I wanted it so badly.
BLASBERG: Why? Because you wanted to be in movies and be famous, or because you identified with that role?
WATSON: I loved the books—I was a massive fan. I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know that sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew. At the beginning, they were
casting the other characters as well—but I always knew I was going out for Hermione. She came so naturally to me. Maybe so much of myself at the time was similar to her. Of course, all this terrified my parents—there were literally thousands and thousands of girls going out for the audition, and my parents were anxious about what I would do if I didn’t get it.
BLASBERG: I’m sure they were like, “What are we going to get her if she doesn’t make it? A pony?”
WATSON: They were trying to make me stay realistic—but I wasn’t having any of it. I was going to get that part. This is a sweet thing: My dad did a roast on a Sunday, and he gave me the wishbone, and I obviously made the wish that I would get this role. I still have that wishbone upstairs in my jewelry box.
BLASBERG: It’s been a pretty effective good-luck charm. And now you’re not only doing movies, you’ve become chums with Karl Lagerfeld. How is that friendship going?
WATSON: I’d met Karl a few times before, at parties or something where we really couldn’t talk. But this was a dream come true. We spent the whole day together, and he can talk about anything—literature, art, science, modern culture. I was totally seduced. I felt spoiled to be spending so much time with him.
BLASBERG: Now that you’ve made a little bit of money, are you spending it all on fashion?
WATSON: I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often. When I’m in a situation where I do need to dress up, I’m
typically lent something—which means I have to give it back at midnight, like Cinderella.
BLASBERG: What was your first big splurge when the Potter money came in?
WATSON: Hmm . . . I got myself a laptop. I took my dad to Tuscany. He works so hard, my dad, so I rang up his secretary and asked when he was free, and I booked us a holiday. What else? Oh, I got myself a car.
BLASBERG: I saw the car. I think it’s very good that Hermione Granger drives a Prius.
WATSON: I got my license last year, and I love the Prius, even if my friends say it’s ugly. They say I drive a brick. And, to be fair, it’s not the prettiest car on the road, but it’s good for the environment. It’s sensible and boring—like me.
BLASBERG: It’s polite and efficient, like you.
WATSON: Yes, I am the Prius of my peer group.
BLASBERG: You’ve said previously that after the Harry Potter films are done you’re not sure you’ll continue to be a full-time actress. I personally thought that comment got a lot of unwarranted criticism. When I was 9, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be forever, I would have said a pirate, or a fire engine. Can you imagine if someone held me to that?
WATSON: Ha! I was a little bit shocked by people’s responses, too. Maybe it’s because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever? But I guess I just want to be sure it’s what I want. I was so young, and I don’t think I really knew the greatness of what I was signing on for. I really want to study. I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now—I’m sure I’ll still be here in 10 years, making Harry Potter 30.
BLASBERG: Maybe you could play Hermione’s mom?
WATSON: Oh, don’t! That would be so cringe! Don’t you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?
BLASBERG: Not only that, it’s probably tiring being Hermione. I was on the set with you, and those are long, long days. What time are you there every morning?
WATSON: At the moment, we’re there at about 6:30 a.m., which means I’m picked up at about 5:45 a.m. We’re filming both the seventh and eighth movies at once, and I’m trying to do all of my scenes now and through the summer so I’ll be available for university come September—though it already looks like I’ll be working on Christmas and March breaks.
BLASBERG: In these next two films, are most of your scenes with Dan and Rupert?
WATSON: Yes. In the last book, they’ve left Hogwarts, and they’re traveling around together. It feels right that it started with the three of us and it’s ending with the three of us. It’s about our friendship.
BLASBERG: How are you with those young men off set? Are you friends?
WATSON: To be honest, we see so much of each other when we’re working that hanging out together would be overload. I love them, but I need to see other friends off set. They’re like my siblings now.
BLASBERG: You three have this weird shared experience, though. There’s no one else who will truly know what it was like to grow up in these roles, in this franchise, in this sudden fame, like the three of you do.
WATSON: I completely agree with that, but we’re three different people, too. We will always be very important to each other. But, at the same time, after eight Harry Potter films, we’ll be ready to go and do other things, and be other people, and have time for ourselves.
BLASBERG: Can you imagine that last day of shooting?
WATSON: I can’t. I will be . . . uncontrollable. It’s been half of our lives. It’s made us, it’s formed us. It’s such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad—and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family.
BLASBERG: Like your lovely driver, Nigel.
WATSON: Yes, I love Nigel! You know, he drove me to that first audition, and he’s been drivingme ever since. He’s like my best friend—he knows everything about my life. If you have to sit in the car with someone for two hours a day, you had better like him! I get very jealous when he drives someone else.
BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?
WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.
BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?
WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.
BLASBERG: What are you going to study?
WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.
BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.
WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.
BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?
WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele,
Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.
BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?
WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you reallyhave to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. Asmuch as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.
This is an excerpt of the May cover story. To read the full Emma Watson interview pick up a copy of Interview.
JK Rowling to attend exhibit.
http://nwitimes.com/articles/2009/04/26//entertainment/entertainment/doc81d5ac36eeeccfea862575a0001ca4f8.txt
Attention Aussie fans.
Fans in Australia will be able to watch all the Harry Potter films on the big screen again as part of the build up to the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Longtime TLC reader Donna let us know that starting June 11, Hoyts movie theaters will be screening Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. This will be followed with re-releases of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on June 18, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on June 25, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire starts July 2, with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix due to screen July 9th. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will then open in Australia on July 15.
Premiere dates.
Warner Bros also states that this is the FIRST world premiere, and that two more will take place afterwards in London and New York. The London premiere will take place on Tuesday, July 7th, and the New York City premiere will be the next day, on July 8th.
At the moment we do not know which of the stars will be attending the Japanese premiere; that information will be made public closer to the July date.
At the moment we do not know which of the stars will be attending the Japanese premiere; that information will be made public closer to the July date.
Sunday 26 April 2009
Sunday Times rich list
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/specials/rich_list/article6169164.ece
Signed Potter novels for auction.
http://news.scotsman.com/education/Potter-set-up-for-sale.5211714.jp
Saturday 25 April 2009
JK Rowling ABC special to air.
http://jamesruncie.com/docs/film_rowling.html
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20090424abc01
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20090424abc01
Possible premiere dates.
July 6 will see a premiere in Japan; tentative dates for the UK are Tuesday, July 7 in London, England, with apparently the US to see the premiere here the very next day on Wednesday July 8th in New York City.
Possible premiere dates.
July 6 will see a premiere in Japan; tentative dates for the UK are Tuesday, July 7 in London, England, with apparently the US to see the premiere here the very next day on Wednesday July 8th in New York City.
Friday 24 April 2009
New interview.
http://www.mtv.com/videos/movies/376192/emma-watsons-take-on-hermione.jhtml#id=1609933
Thursday 23 April 2009
Real actors v Muggles.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1172735/No-chance-getting-lot-Muggled-Harry-Potter-convincing-lookalikes.html?ITO=1490
new images of filming.
http://www.celebrity-gossip.net/celebrities/hollywood/harry-potter-stars-hard-at-work-212903/
MTV asia talks to Emma.
Just last week, the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released, and now Potter fans need only wait until June 15 for the movie's premiere. And Emma Watson, who admits to being a fan of the Harry Potter book series before being cast as Hermione, thinks that she might even come out of her self-imposed acting retirement to continue playing the wizard kid.
"I was a little bit shocked by people's responses. ... Maybe it's because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever?" Watson says in the May issue of Interview magazine about the reaction people had to her plans to retire post-Harry Potter.
"I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now - I'm sure I'll still be here in 10 years, making 'Harry Potter 30.' "
But don't think just because she's poised to come back for Harry Potter 30 that Watson is ready to grow up too much on the big screen. In fact, the idea of it makes her "cringe." "That would be so cringe!" she exclaimed when asked if she'd play Hermione's mom someday. "Don't you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?"
Currently, David Yates is back directing Half-Blood Prince, as well as the following two Harry Potter films, but Watson looks back fondly on the work she did with Alfonso Cuarón. "One of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban]. I have a real thing for Mexican directors. And I love Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu."
Soon Watson, along with her co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, will have to say goodbye to their Harry Potter alternate personalities. And Watson just isn't sure she'll be able to handle it emotionally. "I will be ... uncontrollable. It's been half of our lives," she said. "It's made us, it's formed us. It's such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad - and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family."
"I was a little bit shocked by people's responses. ... Maybe it's because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever?" Watson says in the May issue of Interview magazine about the reaction people had to her plans to retire post-Harry Potter.
"I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now - I'm sure I'll still be here in 10 years, making 'Harry Potter 30.' "
But don't think just because she's poised to come back for Harry Potter 30 that Watson is ready to grow up too much on the big screen. In fact, the idea of it makes her "cringe." "That would be so cringe!" she exclaimed when asked if she'd play Hermione's mom someday. "Don't you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?"
Currently, David Yates is back directing Half-Blood Prince, as well as the following two Harry Potter films, but Watson looks back fondly on the work she did with Alfonso Cuarón. "One of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban]. I have a real thing for Mexican directors. And I love Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu."
Soon Watson, along with her co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, will have to say goodbye to their Harry Potter alternate personalities. And Watson just isn't sure she'll be able to handle it emotionally. "I will be ... uncontrollable. It's been half of our lives," she said. "It's made us, it's formed us. It's such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad - and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family."
21/4 filming excerpt
While we expected to see the actual café attack sequence filmed here tonight a crew member informed me that they were unable to get a license from the City Of Westminster for even controlled explosions – so are we to assume the “London café” will actually be a set at Leavesden, and all we will see of real London will be the sequences of them wondering through the streets towards and away from the café?
So all in all, the second night of shooting seemed to pick up where the first left off – lots of walking up and down Shaftesbury avenue, just this time with the additional shots of the apparition sequence for fans to really sink their teeth into (either complaining that “That’s not what happens in the book!?!?” as I heard someone say, or “No…but it does sort of make more sense this way” as another said.) whatever your outlook, as has been mentioned above, the real star tonight was Emma Watson, who, despite only acting for all of 5 seconds the whole night did honestly make you believe in those Five seconds that she was scared.
So all in all, the second night of shooting seemed to pick up where the first left off – lots of walking up and down Shaftesbury avenue, just this time with the additional shots of the apparition sequence for fans to really sink their teeth into (either complaining that “That’s not what happens in the book!?!?” as I heard someone say, or “No…but it does sort of make more sense this way” as another said.) whatever your outlook, as has been mentioned above, the real star tonight was Emma Watson, who, despite only acting for all of 5 seconds the whole night did honestly make you believe in those Five seconds that she was scared.
21/4 details of filming
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2009/4/22/apparate-photos-from-day-two-of-london-location-filming-for-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows
Wednesday 22 April 2009
Emma on fashion.
http://dailycontributor.com/200904204494/emma-watson-graces-cover-of-interview-magazine/
Hermione in a new fashion sense.
http://www.instyle.co.uk/instyleuk/package/general/photos/0,,20220265,00.html
New actor for Mundungus role.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=ENOnline&category=News&tBrand=ENOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED21%20Apr%202009%2010%3A39%3A40%3A333
Interview Mag full by Derek Blasberg
Emma Watson
By Derek Blasberg
Photography Nick Knight
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 centralLondon—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)intoan over-achieving, articulate young woman who punches villains yet still works a pink ball gown.
While Watson has committed her formative years to thisLeavesden Studios set, she doesn’t seem to resent that she’s had to trade slumber parties, nightclubs, and football games for rehearsal, filming, and premieres. Although now that she’s finally an adult, the 19-year-old has started to steer her own ship (or, in Watson’s case, the Prius she bought last year). She recently moved out of the family home and into a London duplex she shares with a roommate (its proximity to Potterworld was a deciding factor in the choice of location). She’s picked up an interest in high fashion (and a new fan in Karl Lagerfeld, who recently photographed her for a magazine--see photos here). And, most interestingly (at least to celebrity rags), she’s considering leaving the U.K. this fall to start school at an Ivy League in the U.S. She’s even suggested that her acting career may end when Potter does.
Watson’s life is suddenly falling off-script—but it’s definitely not falling apart. What little naïveté she does possess revolves mostly around her own sense of celebrity. Sure, she acknowledges paparazzi outside of a restaurant, but she is completely unaware of the perks. She once asked me if it would be possible to get her a ticket to a fashion show in Paris—little did she know that the designer’s PR would have picked her up in a helicopter if they had known she wanted to attend. I’ve waited for a table with her at her favorite Mexican dive in Covent Garden, London. I’ve taken her to concerts in Brooklyn clubs that were carpeted in empty beer cans. And once we played pool in a London pub frequented by big hairy gay men in leather chaps. She seems to be just as happy outside of Potterworld as she is working in the center of it. As expected, her schedule is ridiculous: Days are meticulously planned, call times are often before sunrise, and she’s Hermione for entire days that turn into entire weeks. Unlike most English girls, Watson had never been to a traditional football match. So, the day after my visit to Potterworld, we took in a Chelsea vs. Manchester City game. Afterward, we went back to her apartment, which is on the top two floors of a row house. Despite the fact that Watson hosted a dinner party the night before, the place was tidy. She proceeded to make tea and jammed toast as we sat down to talk about Potter, Hogwarts and all.
DEREK BLASBERG: I can’t believe that was your very first football match ever. What have you been doing your whole life?
EMMA WATSON: Oh, I don’t know. I did these littlefilms that no one’s ever heard of. Just a fewindependents.
BLASBERG: And I hear you just hosted your first-ever dinner party last night. How did that go?
WATSON: Well, it was a disaster. Not because I’m a terrible cook, but because the time limit was too short. I was only able to make half the pie—a cottage pie, which is this very British beef mince meal—so I had to abandon it.
BLASBERG: Was this one of those situations where you wish you had a magic wand?
WATSON: Oh, my god. That is the first time in the whole course of my knowing you that you’ve resorted to making a bad Harry Potter joke. This is a sad moment. But, yes, I ran out of time. It was like MasterChef in my kitchen last night, a really stressful atmosphere . . .
BLASBERG: With sweat dripping down your nose, and youpanting heavily?
WATSON: Exactly. But as a debutante foray into entertaining, I aced it.
BLASBERG: What a weekend of firsts: first dinner party, first football game. What else?
WATSON: First time I worked with [photographer] Nick Knight. He was very nice, very English.
BLASBERG: Do you prefer working with an English team? When I visited you on the Harry Potter set, the majority of people were Englishmen.
WATSON: Well, I shouldn’t say I have a favorite director—that wouldn’t be very diplomatic. But one of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Watson in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban (2004)]. I have a real thing forMexican directors. And I loveGuillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BLASBERG: Is that why you were in Mexico earlier this year?
WATSON: I went because I wanted to travel and I had heard such great things about the country.I didn’t get to see any of those guys.
BLASBERG: Of course not. A young girl in Mexico means spring break! Cancún, baby! Tequila shots at Señor Frogs!
WATSON: That was the weirdest place ever. In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie. I was only there for two days—thankfully my friends and I were more interested in traveling around other parts of the country. But I seriously thought it was only like that in movies.
BLASBERG: When I was in high school, we went to Mexico for spring break, and it was surreal. Like, school nerds entering wet-T-shirt contests, and high-school jocks screwing the secretly slutty goth theater girls.
WATSON: It’s so exciting.
BLASBERG: This is what you missed while you were doing Harry Potter, Emma.
WATSON: I know. I feel so deprived. But Cancún was certainly not my favorite. We went to Ixtapa, where the ruins are. It was a beautiful, chilled-out part of the country. We went to Mexico City, which was amazing, but quite dangerous. We were happy to get out of there in the end. And we went to Cuba—I would tell everyone to go to Cuba now, because in 10 years it will be completely different.
BLASBERG: Do you like to travel?
WATSON: Yes, and that’s where the films have helped. With Harry Potter, I’ve been all over the world. I probably wouldn’t have gone to New York so young if it weren’t for the films. I was 11, and I remember it distinctly because it was just after 9/11. I was at ground zero, looking at this gallery that had messages and drawings all over the walls.
BLASBERG: That’s heavy stuff for an 11-year-old.
WATSON: Yeah, it was. I remember one of the producers gave this great speech while we were there, saying that maybe the reason Harry Potter was so successful, particularly then, was because people really wanted to be uplifted or taken to another place.
BLASBERG: I find it intriguing that you started this journey when you were 9. How did you even know about the books?
WATSON: My dad used to read them to me before I went to bed and while on long car journeys.
BLASBERG: So then you just went to an open call?
WATSON: No, there was no open audition—they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools. They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.
BLASBERG: What happened between that gym photo and the first day of shooting?
WATSON: It was a long time—eight auditions . . .
BLASBERG: Did you meet any of the other girls who were going out for the parts?
WATSON: Yes! I won’t say the name, but there was this girl who had already done a film before. I can remember just crumbling at the sight of her, thinking, “She’s been in a film before, and she knows how to do this. I have no chance.” Even worse, one time I came to the studios, and she was there playing cards with one of the other boys auditioning for Harry—not Daniel
Radcliffe. And I was like, “Oh, my god, they’re making friends already! I’m definitely not going to get it.” I was so, so upset.
BLASBERG: I bet those two have pictures of you and Daniel Radcliffe on their dartboards now.
WATSON: Probably. But I wanted it so badly.
BLASBERG: Why? Because you wanted to be in movies and be famous, or because you identified with that role?
WATSON: I loved the books—I was a massive fan. I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know that sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew. At the beginning, they were
casting the other characters as well—but I always knew I was going out for Hermione. She came so naturally to me. Maybe so much of myself at the time was similar to her. Of course, all this terrified my parents—there were literally thousands and thousands of girls going out for the audition, and my parents were anxious about what I would do if I didn’t get it.
BLASBERG: I’m sure they were like, “What are we going to get her if she doesn’t make it? A pony?”
WATSON: They were trying to make me stay realistic—but I wasn’t having any of it. I was going to get that part. This is a sweet thing: My dad did a roast on a Sunday, and he gave me the wishbone, and I obviously made the wish that I would get this role. I still have that wishbone upstairs in my jewelry box.
BLASBERG: It’s been a pretty effective good-luck charm. And now you’re not only doing movies, you’ve become chums with Karl Lagerfeld. How is that friendship going?
WATSON: I’d met Karl a few times before, at parties or something where we really couldn’t talk. But this was a dream come true. We spent the whole day together, and he can talk about anything—literature, art, science, modern culture. I was totally seduced. I felt spoiled to be spending so much time with him.
BLASBERG: Now that you’ve made a little bit of money, are you spending it all on fashion?
WATSON: I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often. When I’m in a situation where I do need to dress up, I’m
typically lent something—which means I have to give it back at midnight, like Cinderella.
BLASBERG: What was your first big splurge when the Potter money came in?
WATSON: Hmm . . . I got myself a laptop. I took my dad to Tuscany. He works so hard, my dad, so I rang up his secretary and asked when he was free, and I booked us a holiday. What else? Oh, I got myself a car.
BLASBERG: I saw the car. I think it’s very good that Hermione Granger drives a Prius.
WATSON: I got my license last year, and I love the Prius, even if my friends say it’s ugly. They say I drive a brick. And, to be fair, it’s not the prettiest car on the road, but it’s good for the environment. It’s sensible and boring—like me.
BLASBERG: It’s polite and efficient, like you.
WATSON: Yes, I am the Prius of my peer group.
BLASBERG: You’ve said previously that after the Harry Potter films are done you’re not sure you’ll continue to be a full-time actress. I personally thought that comment got a lot of unwarranted criticism. When I was 9, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be forever, I would have said a pirate, or a fire engine. Can you imagine if someone held me to that?
WATSON: Ha! I was a little bit shocked by people’s responses, too. Maybe it’s because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever? But I guess I just want to be sure it’s what I want. I was so young, and I don’t think I really knew the greatness of what I was signing on for. I really want to study. I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now—I’m sure I’ll still be here in 10 years, making Harry Potter 30.
BLASBERG: Maybe you could play Hermione’s mom?
WATSON: Oh, don’t! That would be so cringe! Don’t you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?
BLASBERG: Not only that, it’s probably tiring being Hermione. I was on the set with you, and those are long, long days. What time are you there every morning?
WATSON: At the moment, we’re there at about 6:30 a.m., which means I’m picked up at about 5:45 a.m. We’re filming both the seventh and eighth movies at once, and I’m trying to do all of my scenes now and through the summer so I’ll be available for university come September—though it already looks like I’ll be working on Christmas and March breaks.
BLASBERG: In these next two films, are most of your scenes with Dan and Rupert?
WATSON: Yes. In the last book, they’ve left Hogwarts, and they’re traveling around together. It feels right that it started with the three of us and it’s ending with the three of us. It’s about our friendship.
BLASBERG: How are you with those young men off set? Are you friends?
WATSON: To be honest, we see so much of each other when we’re working that hanging out together would be overload. I love them, but I need to see other friends off set. They’re like my siblings now.
BLASBERG: You three have this weird shared experience, though. There’s no one else who will truly know what it was like to grow up in these roles, in this franchise, in this sudden fame, like the three of you do.
WATSON: I completely agree with that, but we’re three different people, too. We will always be very important to each other. But, at the same time, after eight Harry Potter films, we’ll be ready to go and do other things, and be other people, and have time for ourselves.
BLASBERG: Can you imagine that last day of shooting?
WATSON: I can’t. I will be . . . uncontrollable. It’s been half of our lives. It’s made us, it’s formed us. It’s such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad—and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family.
BLASBERG: Like your lovely driver, Nigel.
WATSON: Yes, I love Nigel! You know, he drove me to that first audition, and he’s been drivingme ever since. He’s like my best friend—he knows everything about my life. If you have to sit in the car with someone for two hours a day, you had better like him! I get very jealous when he drives someone else.
BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?
WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.
BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?
WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.
BLASBERG: What are you going to study?
WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.
BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.
WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.
BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?
WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele,
Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.
BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?
WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you reallyhave to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. Asmuch as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.
By Derek Blasberg
Photography Nick Knight
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 centralLondon—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)intoan over-achieving, articulate young woman who punches villains yet still works a pink ball gown.
While Watson has committed her formative years to thisLeavesden Studios set, she doesn’t seem to resent that she’s had to trade slumber parties, nightclubs, and football games for rehearsal, filming, and premieres. Although now that she’s finally an adult, the 19-year-old has started to steer her own ship (or, in Watson’s case, the Prius she bought last year). She recently moved out of the family home and into a London duplex she shares with a roommate (its proximity to Potterworld was a deciding factor in the choice of location). She’s picked up an interest in high fashion (and a new fan in Karl Lagerfeld, who recently photographed her for a magazine--see photos here). And, most interestingly (at least to celebrity rags), she’s considering leaving the U.K. this fall to start school at an Ivy League in the U.S. She’s even suggested that her acting career may end when Potter does.
Watson’s life is suddenly falling off-script—but it’s definitely not falling apart. What little naïveté she does possess revolves mostly around her own sense of celebrity. Sure, she acknowledges paparazzi outside of a restaurant, but she is completely unaware of the perks. She once asked me if it would be possible to get her a ticket to a fashion show in Paris—little did she know that the designer’s PR would have picked her up in a helicopter if they had known she wanted to attend. I’ve waited for a table with her at her favorite Mexican dive in Covent Garden, London. I’ve taken her to concerts in Brooklyn clubs that were carpeted in empty beer cans. And once we played pool in a London pub frequented by big hairy gay men in leather chaps. She seems to be just as happy outside of Potterworld as she is working in the center of it. As expected, her schedule is ridiculous: Days are meticulously planned, call times are often before sunrise, and she’s Hermione for entire days that turn into entire weeks. Unlike most English girls, Watson had never been to a traditional football match. So, the day after my visit to Potterworld, we took in a Chelsea vs. Manchester City game. Afterward, we went back to her apartment, which is on the top two floors of a row house. Despite the fact that Watson hosted a dinner party the night before, the place was tidy. She proceeded to make tea and jammed toast as we sat down to talk about Potter, Hogwarts and all.
DEREK BLASBERG: I can’t believe that was your very first football match ever. What have you been doing your whole life?
EMMA WATSON: Oh, I don’t know. I did these littlefilms that no one’s ever heard of. Just a fewindependents.
BLASBERG: And I hear you just hosted your first-ever dinner party last night. How did that go?
WATSON: Well, it was a disaster. Not because I’m a terrible cook, but because the time limit was too short. I was only able to make half the pie—a cottage pie, which is this very British beef mince meal—so I had to abandon it.
BLASBERG: Was this one of those situations where you wish you had a magic wand?
WATSON: Oh, my god. That is the first time in the whole course of my knowing you that you’ve resorted to making a bad Harry Potter joke. This is a sad moment. But, yes, I ran out of time. It was like MasterChef in my kitchen last night, a really stressful atmosphere . . .
BLASBERG: With sweat dripping down your nose, and youpanting heavily?
WATSON: Exactly. But as a debutante foray into entertaining, I aced it.
BLASBERG: What a weekend of firsts: first dinner party, first football game. What else?
WATSON: First time I worked with [photographer] Nick Knight. He was very nice, very English.
BLASBERG: Do you prefer working with an English team? When I visited you on the Harry Potter set, the majority of people were Englishmen.
WATSON: Well, I shouldn’t say I have a favorite director—that wouldn’t be very diplomatic. But one of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Watson in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban (2004)]. I have a real thing forMexican directors. And I loveGuillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BLASBERG: Is that why you were in Mexico earlier this year?
WATSON: I went because I wanted to travel and I had heard such great things about the country.I didn’t get to see any of those guys.
BLASBERG: Of course not. A young girl in Mexico means spring break! Cancún, baby! Tequila shots at Señor Frogs!
WATSON: That was the weirdest place ever. In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie. I was only there for two days—thankfully my friends and I were more interested in traveling around other parts of the country. But I seriously thought it was only like that in movies.
BLASBERG: When I was in high school, we went to Mexico for spring break, and it was surreal. Like, school nerds entering wet-T-shirt contests, and high-school jocks screwing the secretly slutty goth theater girls.
WATSON: It’s so exciting.
BLASBERG: This is what you missed while you were doing Harry Potter, Emma.
WATSON: I know. I feel so deprived. But Cancún was certainly not my favorite. We went to Ixtapa, where the ruins are. It was a beautiful, chilled-out part of the country. We went to Mexico City, which was amazing, but quite dangerous. We were happy to get out of there in the end. And we went to Cuba—I would tell everyone to go to Cuba now, because in 10 years it will be completely different.
BLASBERG: Do you like to travel?
WATSON: Yes, and that’s where the films have helped. With Harry Potter, I’ve been all over the world. I probably wouldn’t have gone to New York so young if it weren’t for the films. I was 11, and I remember it distinctly because it was just after 9/11. I was at ground zero, looking at this gallery that had messages and drawings all over the walls.
BLASBERG: That’s heavy stuff for an 11-year-old.
WATSON: Yeah, it was. I remember one of the producers gave this great speech while we were there, saying that maybe the reason Harry Potter was so successful, particularly then, was because people really wanted to be uplifted or taken to another place.
BLASBERG: I find it intriguing that you started this journey when you were 9. How did you even know about the books?
WATSON: My dad used to read them to me before I went to bed and while on long car journeys.
BLASBERG: So then you just went to an open call?
WATSON: No, there was no open audition—they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools. They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.
BLASBERG: What happened between that gym photo and the first day of shooting?
WATSON: It was a long time—eight auditions . . .
BLASBERG: Did you meet any of the other girls who were going out for the parts?
WATSON: Yes! I won’t say the name, but there was this girl who had already done a film before. I can remember just crumbling at the sight of her, thinking, “She’s been in a film before, and she knows how to do this. I have no chance.” Even worse, one time I came to the studios, and she was there playing cards with one of the other boys auditioning for Harry—not Daniel
Radcliffe. And I was like, “Oh, my god, they’re making friends already! I’m definitely not going to get it.” I was so, so upset.
BLASBERG: I bet those two have pictures of you and Daniel Radcliffe on their dartboards now.
WATSON: Probably. But I wanted it so badly.
BLASBERG: Why? Because you wanted to be in movies and be famous, or because you identified with that role?
WATSON: I loved the books—I was a massive fan. I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know that sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew. At the beginning, they were
casting the other characters as well—but I always knew I was going out for Hermione. She came so naturally to me. Maybe so much of myself at the time was similar to her. Of course, all this terrified my parents—there were literally thousands and thousands of girls going out for the audition, and my parents were anxious about what I would do if I didn’t get it.
BLASBERG: I’m sure they were like, “What are we going to get her if she doesn’t make it? A pony?”
WATSON: They were trying to make me stay realistic—but I wasn’t having any of it. I was going to get that part. This is a sweet thing: My dad did a roast on a Sunday, and he gave me the wishbone, and I obviously made the wish that I would get this role. I still have that wishbone upstairs in my jewelry box.
BLASBERG: It’s been a pretty effective good-luck charm. And now you’re not only doing movies, you’ve become chums with Karl Lagerfeld. How is that friendship going?
WATSON: I’d met Karl a few times before, at parties or something where we really couldn’t talk. But this was a dream come true. We spent the whole day together, and he can talk about anything—literature, art, science, modern culture. I was totally seduced. I felt spoiled to be spending so much time with him.
BLASBERG: Now that you’ve made a little bit of money, are you spending it all on fashion?
WATSON: I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often. When I’m in a situation where I do need to dress up, I’m
typically lent something—which means I have to give it back at midnight, like Cinderella.
BLASBERG: What was your first big splurge when the Potter money came in?
WATSON: Hmm . . . I got myself a laptop. I took my dad to Tuscany. He works so hard, my dad, so I rang up his secretary and asked when he was free, and I booked us a holiday. What else? Oh, I got myself a car.
BLASBERG: I saw the car. I think it’s very good that Hermione Granger drives a Prius.
WATSON: I got my license last year, and I love the Prius, even if my friends say it’s ugly. They say I drive a brick. And, to be fair, it’s not the prettiest car on the road, but it’s good for the environment. It’s sensible and boring—like me.
BLASBERG: It’s polite and efficient, like you.
WATSON: Yes, I am the Prius of my peer group.
BLASBERG: You’ve said previously that after the Harry Potter films are done you’re not sure you’ll continue to be a full-time actress. I personally thought that comment got a lot of unwarranted criticism. When I was 9, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be forever, I would have said a pirate, or a fire engine. Can you imagine if someone held me to that?
WATSON: Ha! I was a little bit shocked by people’s responses, too. Maybe it’s because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever? But I guess I just want to be sure it’s what I want. I was so young, and I don’t think I really knew the greatness of what I was signing on for. I really want to study. I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now—I’m sure I’ll still be here in 10 years, making Harry Potter 30.
BLASBERG: Maybe you could play Hermione’s mom?
WATSON: Oh, don’t! That would be so cringe! Don’t you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?
BLASBERG: Not only that, it’s probably tiring being Hermione. I was on the set with you, and those are long, long days. What time are you there every morning?
WATSON: At the moment, we’re there at about 6:30 a.m., which means I’m picked up at about 5:45 a.m. We’re filming both the seventh and eighth movies at once, and I’m trying to do all of my scenes now and through the summer so I’ll be available for university come September—though it already looks like I’ll be working on Christmas and March breaks.
BLASBERG: In these next two films, are most of your scenes with Dan and Rupert?
WATSON: Yes. In the last book, they’ve left Hogwarts, and they’re traveling around together. It feels right that it started with the three of us and it’s ending with the three of us. It’s about our friendship.
BLASBERG: How are you with those young men off set? Are you friends?
WATSON: To be honest, we see so much of each other when we’re working that hanging out together would be overload. I love them, but I need to see other friends off set. They’re like my siblings now.
BLASBERG: You three have this weird shared experience, though. There’s no one else who will truly know what it was like to grow up in these roles, in this franchise, in this sudden fame, like the three of you do.
WATSON: I completely agree with that, but we’re three different people, too. We will always be very important to each other. But, at the same time, after eight Harry Potter films, we’ll be ready to go and do other things, and be other people, and have time for ourselves.
BLASBERG: Can you imagine that last day of shooting?
WATSON: I can’t. I will be . . . uncontrollable. It’s been half of our lives. It’s made us, it’s formed us. It’s such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad—and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family.
BLASBERG: Like your lovely driver, Nigel.
WATSON: Yes, I love Nigel! You know, he drove me to that first audition, and he’s been drivingme ever since. He’s like my best friend—he knows everything about my life. If you have to sit in the car with someone for two hours a day, you had better like him! I get very jealous when he drives someone else.
BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?
WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.
BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?
WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.
BLASBERG: What are you going to study?
WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.
BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.
WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.
BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?
WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele,
Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.
BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?
WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you reallyhave to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. Asmuch as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.
Tuesday 21 April 2009
DH filming in Scotland.
http://forargyll.com/2009/04/argylls-loch-etive-sees-filming-on-last-harry-potter-novel/
Emma kisses bf on set.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1172255/Thats-script-Hermione-Emma-Watson-puckers-boyfriend-Jay-Harry-Potter-set.html
Slide of Interview mag aka Vampire shoot.
http://www.slide.com/r/osNlVt1k6D8paa_akYtewUzhPObVIQyo?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original
Emma and bf on DH set.
It’s the Scottish countryside – shooting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!!
One photo of Daniel Radcliffe with Emma Watson. And – so cute! – Emma with a boy (they say her boyfriend), kissing and holding hands during downtime. She looks adorable in her plaid shirt and boots.
One photo of Daniel Radcliffe with Emma Watson. And – so cute! – Emma with a boy (they say her boyfriend), kissing and holding hands during downtime. She looks adorable in her plaid shirt and boots.
Transcript of interview.
DEREK BLASBERG: I can’t believe that was your very first football match ever. What have you been doing your whole life?
EMMA WATSON: Oh, I don’t know. I did these littlefilms that no one’s ever heard of. Just a fewindependents.
BLASBERG: And I hear you just hosted your first-ever dinner party last night. How did that go?
WATSON: Well, it was a disaster. Not because I’m a terrible cook, but because the time limit was too short. I was only able to make half the pie—a cottage pie, which is this very British beef mince meal—so I had to abandon it.
BLASBERG: Was this one of those situations where you wish you had a magic wand?
WATSON: Oh, my god. That is the first time in the whole course of my knowing you that you’ve resorted to making a bad Harry Potter joke. This is a sad moment. But, yes, I ran out of time. It was like MasterChef in my kitchen last night, a really stressful atmosphere . . .
BLASBERG: With sweat dripping down your nose, and youpanting heavily?
WATSON: Exactly. But as a debutante foray into entertaining, I aced it.
BLASBERG: What a weekend of firsts: first dinner party, first football game. What else?
WATSON: First time I worked with [photographer] Nick Knight. He was very nice, very English.
BLASBERG: Do you prefer working with an English team? When I visited you on the Harry Potter set, the majority of people were Englishmen.
WATSON: Well, I shouldn’t say I have a favorite director—that wouldn’t be very diplomatic. But one of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Watson in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban (2004)]. I have a real thing forMexican directors. And I loveGuillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BLASBERG: Is that why you were in Mexico earlier this year?
WATSON: I went because I wanted to travel and I had heard such great things about the country.I didn’t get to see any of those guys.
BLASBERG: Of course not. A young girl in Mexico means spring break! Cancún, baby! Tequila shots at Señor Frogs!
WATSON: That was the weirdest place ever. In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie. I was only there for two days—thankfully my friends and I were more interested in traveling around other parts of the country. But I seriously thought it was only like that in movies.
BLASBERG: When I was in high school, we went to Mexico for spring break, and it was surreal. Like, school nerds entering wet-T-shirt contests, and high-school jocks screwing the secretly slutty goth theater girls.
WATSON: It’s so exciting.
BLASBERG: This is what you missed while you were doing Harry Potter, Emma.
WATSON: I know. I feel so deprived. But Cancún was certainly not my favorite. We went to Ixtapa, where the ruins are. It was a beautiful, chilled-out part of the country. We went to Mexico City, which was amazing, but quite dangerous. We were happy to get out of there in the end. And we went to Cuba—I would tell everyone to go to Cuba now, because in 10 years it will be completely different.
BLASBERG: Do you like to travel?
WATSON: Yes, and that’s where the films have helped. With Harry Potter, I’ve been all over the world. I probably wouldn’t have gone to New York so young if it weren’t for the films. I was 11, and I remember it distinctly because it was just after 9/11. I was at ground zero, looking at this gallery that had messages and drawings all over the walls.
BLASBERG: That’s heavy stuff for an 11-year-old.
WATSON: Yeah, it was. I remember one of the producers gave this great speech while we were there, saying that maybe the reason Harry Potter was so successful, particularly then, was because people really wanted to be uplifted or taken to another place.
BLASBERG: I find it intriguing that you started this journey when you were 9. How did you even know about the books?
WATSON: My dad used to read them to me before I went to bed and while on long car journeys.
BLASBERG: So then you just went to an open call?
WATSON: No, there was no open audition—they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools. They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.
BLASBERG: What happened between that gym photo and the first day of shooting?
WATSON: It was a long time—eight auditions . . .
BLASBERG: Did you meet any of the other girls who were going out for the parts?
WATSON: Yes! I won’t say the name, but there was this girl who had already done a film before. I can remember just crumbling at the sight of her, thinking, “She’s been in a film before, and she knows how to do this. I have no chance.” Even worse, one time I came to the studios, and she was there playing cards with one of the other boys auditioning for Harry—not Daniel
Radcliffe. And I was like, “Oh, my god, they’re making friends already! I’m definitely not going to get it.” I was so, so upset.
BLASBERG: I bet those two have pictures of you and Daniel Radcliffe on their dartboards now.
WATSON: Probably. But I wanted it so badly.
BLASBERG: Why? Because you wanted to be in movies and be famous, or because you identified with that role?
WATSON: I loved the books—I was a massive fan. I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know that sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew. At the beginning, they were
casting the other characters as well—but I always knew I was going out for Hermione. She came so naturally to me. Maybe so much of myself at the time was similar to her. Of course, all this terrified my parents—there were literally thousands and thousands of girls going out for the audition, and my parents were anxious about what I would do if I didn’t get it.
BLASBERG: I’m sure they were like, “What are we going to get her if she doesn’t make it? A pony?”
WATSON: They were trying to make me stay realistic—but I wasn’t having any of it. I was going to get that part. This is a sweet thing: My dad did a roast on a Sunday, and he gave me the wishbone, and I obviously made the wish that I would get this role. I still have that wishbone upstairs in my jewelry box.
BLASBERG: It’s been a pretty effective good-luck charm. And now you’re not only doing movies, you’ve become chums with Karl Lagerfeld. How is that friendship going?
WATSON: I’d met Karl a few times before, at parties or something where we really couldn’t talk. But this was a dream come true. We spent the whole day together, and he can talk about anything—literature, art, science, modern culture. I was totally seduced. I felt spoiled to be spending so much time with him.
BLASBERG: Now that you’ve made a little bit of money, are you spending it all on fashion?
WATSON: I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often. When I’m in a situation where I do need to dress up, I’m
typically lent something—which means I have to give it back at midnight, like Cinderella.
BLASBERG: What was your first big splurge when the Potter money came in?
WATSON: Hmm . . . I got myself a laptop. I took my dad to Tuscany. He works so hard, my dad, so I rang up his secretary and asked when he was free, and I booked us a holiday. What else? Oh, I got myself a car.
BLASBERG: I saw the car. I think it’s very good that Hermione Granger drives a Prius.
WATSON: I got my license last year, and I love the Prius, even if my friends say it’s ugly. They say I drive a brick. And, to be fair, it’s not the prettiest car on the road, but it’s good for the environment. It’s sensible and boring—like me.
BLASBERG: It’s polite and efficient, like you.
WATSON: Yes, I am the Prius of my peer group.
BLASBERG: You’ve said previously that after the Harry Potter films are done you’re not sure you’ll continue to be a full-time actress. I personally thought that comment got a lot of unwarranted criticism. When I was 9, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be forever, I would have said a pirate, or a fire engine. Can you imagine if someone held me to that?
WATSON: Ha! I was a little bit shocked by people’s responses, too. Maybe it’s because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever? But I guess I just want to be sure it’s what I want. I was so young, and I don’t think I really knew the greatness of what I was signing on for. I really want to study. I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now—I’m sure I’ll still be here in 10 years, making Harry Potter 30.
BLASBERG: Maybe you could play Hermione’s mom?
WATSON: Oh, don’t! That would be so cringe! Don’t you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?
BLASBERG: Not only that, it’s probably tiring being Hermione. I was on the set with you, and those are long, long days. What time are you there every morning?
WATSON: At the moment, we’re there at about 6:30 a.m., which means I’m picked up at about 5:45 a.m. We’re filming both the seventh and eighth movies at once, and I’m trying to do all of my scenes now and through the summer so I’ll be available for university come September—though it already looks like I’ll be working on Christmas and March breaks.
BLASBERG: In these next two films, are most of your scenes with Dan and Rupert?
WATSON: Yes. In the last book, they’ve left Hogwarts, and they’re traveling around together. It feels right that it started with the three of us and it’s ending with the three of us. It’s about our friendship.
BLASBERG: How are you with those young men off set? Are you friends?
WATSON: To be honest, we see so much of each other when we’re working that hanging out together would be overload. I love them, but I need to see other friends off set. They’re like my siblings now.
BLASBERG: You three have this weird shared experience, though. There’s no one else who will truly know what it was like to grow up in these roles, in this franchise, in this sudden fame, like the three of you do.
WATSON: I completely agree with that, but we’re three different people, too. We will always be very important to each other. But, at the same time, after eight Harry Potter films, we’ll be ready to go and do other things, and be other people, and have time for ourselves.
BLASBERG: Can you imagine that last day of shooting?
WATSON: I can’t. I will be . . . uncontrollable. It’s been half of our lives. It’s made us, it’s formed us. It’s such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad—and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family.
BLASBERG: Like your lovely driver, Nigel.
WATSON: Yes, I love Nigel! You know, he drove me to that first audition, and he’s been drivingme ever since. He’s like my best friend—he knows everything about my life. If you have to sit in the car with someone for two hours a day, you had better like him! I get very jealous when he drives someone else.
BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?
WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.
BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?
WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.
BLASBERG: What are you going to study?
WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.
BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.
WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.
BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?
WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele,
Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.
BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?
WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you reallyhave to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. Asmuch as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.
EMMA WATSON: Oh, I don’t know. I did these littlefilms that no one’s ever heard of. Just a fewindependents.
BLASBERG: And I hear you just hosted your first-ever dinner party last night. How did that go?
WATSON: Well, it was a disaster. Not because I’m a terrible cook, but because the time limit was too short. I was only able to make half the pie—a cottage pie, which is this very British beef mince meal—so I had to abandon it.
BLASBERG: Was this one of those situations where you wish you had a magic wand?
WATSON: Oh, my god. That is the first time in the whole course of my knowing you that you’ve resorted to making a bad Harry Potter joke. This is a sad moment. But, yes, I ran out of time. It was like MasterChef in my kitchen last night, a really stressful atmosphere . . .
BLASBERG: With sweat dripping down your nose, and youpanting heavily?
WATSON: Exactly. But as a debutante foray into entertaining, I aced it.
BLASBERG: What a weekend of firsts: first dinner party, first football game. What else?
WATSON: First time I worked with [photographer] Nick Knight. He was very nice, very English.
BLASBERG: Do you prefer working with an English team? When I visited you on the Harry Potter set, the majority of people were Englishmen.
WATSON: Well, I shouldn’t say I have a favorite director—that wouldn’t be very diplomatic. But one of the people I enjoyed working with most was Alfonso Cuarón [who directed Watson in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisonerof Azkaban (2004)]. I have a real thing forMexican directors. And I loveGuillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
BLASBERG: Is that why you were in Mexico earlier this year?
WATSON: I went because I wanted to travel and I had heard such great things about the country.I didn’t get to see any of those guys.
BLASBERG: Of course not. A young girl in Mexico means spring break! Cancún, baby! Tequila shots at Señor Frogs!
WATSON: That was the weirdest place ever. In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie. I was only there for two days—thankfully my friends and I were more interested in traveling around other parts of the country. But I seriously thought it was only like that in movies.
BLASBERG: When I was in high school, we went to Mexico for spring break, and it was surreal. Like, school nerds entering wet-T-shirt contests, and high-school jocks screwing the secretly slutty goth theater girls.
WATSON: It’s so exciting.
BLASBERG: This is what you missed while you were doing Harry Potter, Emma.
WATSON: I know. I feel so deprived. But Cancún was certainly not my favorite. We went to Ixtapa, where the ruins are. It was a beautiful, chilled-out part of the country. We went to Mexico City, which was amazing, but quite dangerous. We were happy to get out of there in the end. And we went to Cuba—I would tell everyone to go to Cuba now, because in 10 years it will be completely different.
BLASBERG: Do you like to travel?
WATSON: Yes, and that’s where the films have helped. With Harry Potter, I’ve been all over the world. I probably wouldn’t have gone to New York so young if it weren’t for the films. I was 11, and I remember it distinctly because it was just after 9/11. I was at ground zero, looking at this gallery that had messages and drawings all over the walls.
BLASBERG: That’s heavy stuff for an 11-year-old.
WATSON: Yeah, it was. I remember one of the producers gave this great speech while we were there, saying that maybe the reason Harry Potter was so successful, particularly then, was because people really wanted to be uplifted or taken to another place.
BLASBERG: I find it intriguing that you started this journey when you were 9. How did you even know about the books?
WATSON: My dad used to read them to me before I went to bed and while on long car journeys.
BLASBERG: So then you just went to an open call?
WATSON: No, there was no open audition—they went all over England to find these characters, and not just drama schools. They came to my school and asked if they could put forward a group of 20 children between the ages of 9 and 12. They took my photograph in the school gym, and then I got a call three weeks later.
BLASBERG: What happened between that gym photo and the first day of shooting?
WATSON: It was a long time—eight auditions . . .
BLASBERG: Did you meet any of the other girls who were going out for the parts?
WATSON: Yes! I won’t say the name, but there was this girl who had already done a film before. I can remember just crumbling at the sight of her, thinking, “She’s been in a film before, and she knows how to do this. I have no chance.” Even worse, one time I came to the studios, and she was there playing cards with one of the other boys auditioning for Harry—not Daniel
Radcliffe. And I was like, “Oh, my god, they’re making friends already! I’m definitely not going to get it.” I was so, so upset.
BLASBERG: I bet those two have pictures of you and Daniel Radcliffe on their dartboards now.
WATSON: Probably. But I wanted it so badly.
BLASBERG: Why? Because you wanted to be in movies and be famous, or because you identified with that role?
WATSON: I loved the books—I was a massive fan. I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know that sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew. At the beginning, they were
casting the other characters as well—but I always knew I was going out for Hermione. She came so naturally to me. Maybe so much of myself at the time was similar to her. Of course, all this terrified my parents—there were literally thousands and thousands of girls going out for the audition, and my parents were anxious about what I would do if I didn’t get it.
BLASBERG: I’m sure they were like, “What are we going to get her if she doesn’t make it? A pony?”
WATSON: They were trying to make me stay realistic—but I wasn’t having any of it. I was going to get that part. This is a sweet thing: My dad did a roast on a Sunday, and he gave me the wishbone, and I obviously made the wish that I would get this role. I still have that wishbone upstairs in my jewelry box.
BLASBERG: It’s been a pretty effective good-luck charm. And now you’re not only doing movies, you’ve become chums with Karl Lagerfeld. How is that friendship going?
WATSON: I’d met Karl a few times before, at parties or something where we really couldn’t talk. But this was a dream come true. We spent the whole day together, and he can talk about anything—literature, art, science, modern culture. I was totally seduced. I felt spoiled to be spending so much time with him.
BLASBERG: Now that you’ve made a little bit of money, are you spending it all on fashion?
WATSON: I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often. When I’m in a situation where I do need to dress up, I’m
typically lent something—which means I have to give it back at midnight, like Cinderella.
BLASBERG: What was your first big splurge when the Potter money came in?
WATSON: Hmm . . . I got myself a laptop. I took my dad to Tuscany. He works so hard, my dad, so I rang up his secretary and asked when he was free, and I booked us a holiday. What else? Oh, I got myself a car.
BLASBERG: I saw the car. I think it’s very good that Hermione Granger drives a Prius.
WATSON: I got my license last year, and I love the Prius, even if my friends say it’s ugly. They say I drive a brick. And, to be fair, it’s not the prettiest car on the road, but it’s good for the environment. It’s sensible and boring—like me.
BLASBERG: It’s polite and efficient, like you.
WATSON: Yes, I am the Prius of my peer group.
BLASBERG: You’ve said previously that after the Harry Potter films are done you’re not sure you’ll continue to be a full-time actress. I personally thought that comment got a lot of unwarranted criticism. When I was 9, if someone had asked me what I wanted to be forever, I would have said a pirate, or a fire engine. Can you imagine if someone held me to that?
WATSON: Ha! I was a little bit shocked by people’s responses, too. Maybe it’s because, at the moment, there are so many people who want to be famous, so how could I not want this? Or, how could I not want to keep it forever? But I guess I just want to be sure it’s what I want. I was so young, and I don’t think I really knew the greatness of what I was signing on for. I really want to study. I would love to try theater. I need to try stuff out. But I say all this now—I’m sure I’ll still be here in 10 years, making Harry Potter 30.
BLASBERG: Maybe you could play Hermione’s mom?
WATSON: Oh, don’t! That would be so cringe! Don’t you think people would be bored of seeing me in Potterworld by then?
BLASBERG: Not only that, it’s probably tiring being Hermione. I was on the set with you, and those are long, long days. What time are you there every morning?
WATSON: At the moment, we’re there at about 6:30 a.m., which means I’m picked up at about 5:45 a.m. We’re filming both the seventh and eighth movies at once, and I’m trying to do all of my scenes now and through the summer so I’ll be available for university come September—though it already looks like I’ll be working on Christmas and March breaks.
BLASBERG: In these next two films, are most of your scenes with Dan and Rupert?
WATSON: Yes. In the last book, they’ve left Hogwarts, and they’re traveling around together. It feels right that it started with the three of us and it’s ending with the three of us. It’s about our friendship.
BLASBERG: How are you with those young men off set? Are you friends?
WATSON: To be honest, we see so much of each other when we’re working that hanging out together would be overload. I love them, but I need to see other friends off set. They’re like my siblings now.
BLASBERG: You three have this weird shared experience, though. There’s no one else who will truly know what it was like to grow up in these roles, in this franchise, in this sudden fame, like the three of you do.
WATSON: I completely agree with that, but we’re three different people, too. We will always be very important to each other. But, at the same time, after eight Harry Potter films, we’ll be ready to go and do other things, and be other people, and have time for ourselves.
BLASBERG: Can you imagine that last day of shooting?
WATSON: I can’t. I will be . . . uncontrollable. It’s been half of our lives. It’s made us, it’s formed us. It’s such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad—and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family.
BLASBERG: Like your lovely driver, Nigel.
WATSON: Yes, I love Nigel! You know, he drove me to that first audition, and he’s been drivingme ever since. He’s like my best friend—he knows everything about my life. If you have to sit in the car with someone for two hours a day, you had better like him! I get very jealous when he drives someone else.
BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?
WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.
BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?
WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.
BLASBERG: What are you going to study?
WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.
BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.
WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.
BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?
WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele,
Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.
BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?
WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you reallyhave to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. Asmuch as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.
Monday 20 April 2009
21/4 filming report.
For the second day of location shooting, the principal trio were once again all on set – even if only briefly, along with a cast of hundreds of extras (and what felt like even more security)
They recorded several shots, firstly of the Trio, and their doubles, walking along the top of Shaftesbury Avenue off of Piccadilly Circus, just along from where they were last night, with the extras making up the general background of what London’s busiest thoroughfare is.
Fans craned around the heads of the security as they saw what appeared to be the trio walking through the crowd – only for a collective but silent sigh as they get closer and everyone realises its only the doubles. Five minutes later though, with the scene reset, and this time it’s the real deal, with Emma leading the trio through the street, looking (as one may expect for someone who has just heard that the Ministry has fallen) rather shaken. If this few seconds was anything to go by, this could be a good film for Emma to shine.
After a few more takes of this sequence the crew moves onto the very corner of Piccadilly Circus, where the road is temporarily blocked, and the trio take to the center of the road, as a London double-decker bus drives straight at them, stopping in the nick of time. One can only assume that this is the actual Apparition sequence, and that instead of the Tottenham Court Road setting of the book the movie makers have made this into a much bigger sequence, setting it in the instantly recognisable Piccadilly Circus (which makes more sense anyway given that it’s the first place Hermione is supposed to think of and TCR always seemed a strange choice)
At this point the principals get into a black cab and drive away, but the doubles stay to pick up shots for other angles of the bus sequence – one picture of which you can see in TLC’s galleries, with the trio facing the bus itself.
Because of the IMMENSE levels of security surrounding the second day of shooting many fans stood behind the barriers couldn’t see much of what was going on, and so it can only be expected that the photographic evidence of the shoot last night will not be spectacular from anyone not using a giant zoom lens standing above the barricade (of which several paparazzi chose to do anyway)
While we expected to see the actual café attack sequence filmed here tonight a crew member informed me that they were unable to get a license from the City Of Westminster for even controlled explosions – so are we to assume the “London café” will actually be a set at Leavesden, and all we will see of real London will be the sequences of them wondering through the streets towards and away from the café?
So all in all, the second night of shooting seemed to pick up where the first left off – lots of walking up and down Shaftesbury avenue, just this time with the additional shots of the apparition sequence for fans to really sink their teeth into (either complaining that “That’s not what happens in the book!?!?” as I heard someone say, or “No…but it does sort of make more sense this way” as another said.) whatever your outlook, as has been mentioned above, the real star tonight was Emma Watson, who, despite only acting for all of 5seconds the whole night did honestly make you believe in those Five seconds that she was scared.
They recorded several shots, firstly of the Trio, and their doubles, walking along the top of Shaftesbury Avenue off of Piccadilly Circus, just along from where they were last night, with the extras making up the general background of what London’s busiest thoroughfare is.
Fans craned around the heads of the security as they saw what appeared to be the trio walking through the crowd – only for a collective but silent sigh as they get closer and everyone realises its only the doubles. Five minutes later though, with the scene reset, and this time it’s the real deal, with Emma leading the trio through the street, looking (as one may expect for someone who has just heard that the Ministry has fallen) rather shaken. If this few seconds was anything to go by, this could be a good film for Emma to shine.
After a few more takes of this sequence the crew moves onto the very corner of Piccadilly Circus, where the road is temporarily blocked, and the trio take to the center of the road, as a London double-decker bus drives straight at them, stopping in the nick of time. One can only assume that this is the actual Apparition sequence, and that instead of the Tottenham Court Road setting of the book the movie makers have made this into a much bigger sequence, setting it in the instantly recognisable Piccadilly Circus (which makes more sense anyway given that it’s the first place Hermione is supposed to think of and TCR always seemed a strange choice)
At this point the principals get into a black cab and drive away, but the doubles stay to pick up shots for other angles of the bus sequence – one picture of which you can see in TLC’s galleries, with the trio facing the bus itself.
Because of the IMMENSE levels of security surrounding the second day of shooting many fans stood behind the barriers couldn’t see much of what was going on, and so it can only be expected that the photographic evidence of the shoot last night will not be spectacular from anyone not using a giant zoom lens standing above the barricade (of which several paparazzi chose to do anyway)
While we expected to see the actual café attack sequence filmed here tonight a crew member informed me that they were unable to get a license from the City Of Westminster for even controlled explosions – so are we to assume the “London café” will actually be a set at Leavesden, and all we will see of real London will be the sequences of them wondering through the streets towards and away from the café?
So all in all, the second night of shooting seemed to pick up where the first left off – lots of walking up and down Shaftesbury avenue, just this time with the additional shots of the apparition sequence for fans to really sink their teeth into (either complaining that “That’s not what happens in the book!?!?” as I heard someone say, or “No…but it does sort of make more sense this way” as another said.) whatever your outlook, as has been mentioned above, the real star tonight was Emma Watson, who, despite only acting for all of 5seconds the whole night did honestly make you believe in those Five seconds that she was scared.
Saturday 18 April 2009
New hbp soundtrack.
http://www.fuerza-parsel.com.ar/2009/04/exclusivo-19-canciones-del-soundtrack.html
Aging process on the present cast.
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/04/16/exclusive-epilogue-for-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hollows-will-be-shot-with-original-cast/
Narcissa in DH.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1170855/Baz-Bamigboye-Ordinary-Joe-epic-role-Ben-Hur-miniseries.html
Friday 17 April 2009
new trailer script.
Dumbledore: This place has known magic - very dark, very powerful. This time, I can not hope to destroy it alone.
Arthur: Times like these, dark times, it can bring people together.
Ginny: Take my hand.
Arthur: And they can't tear them apart.
Ron: These girls, they're going to kill me, Harry.
Voiceover: This year...
Remus: Voldemort has chosen Draco Malfoy for a mission.
Voiceover: Evil will pass through from their world into our own.
Slughorn: These are mad times we live in, mad!
VO: And the darkest hour...
Dumbledore: This is beyond anything I imagined.
VO: ... is upon us all.
Dumbledore: In my life, I have seen things that are truly horrific. Now I know you'll see worse. You're the chosen one, Harry.
Hermione: You have to realise who you are.
Dumbledore: Without you, we leave the fate of our world to chance. You have no choice.
Arthur: Harry, no!
Dumbledore: You must not fail.
Snape: It's over.
VO: From Warner Bros. pictures...
Arthur: Ginny!
Draco: I have to do this.
Harry: Fight back, you coward! Fight back!
Arthur: Times like these, dark times, it can bring people together.
Ginny: Take my hand.
Arthur: And they can't tear them apart.
Ron: These girls, they're going to kill me, Harry.
Voiceover: This year...
Remus: Voldemort has chosen Draco Malfoy for a mission.
Voiceover: Evil will pass through from their world into our own.
Slughorn: These are mad times we live in, mad!
VO: And the darkest hour...
Dumbledore: This is beyond anything I imagined.
VO: ... is upon us all.
Dumbledore: In my life, I have seen things that are truly horrific. Now I know you'll see worse. You're the chosen one, Harry.
Hermione: You have to realise who you are.
Dumbledore: Without you, we leave the fate of our world to chance. You have no choice.
Arthur: Harry, no!
Dumbledore: You must not fail.
Snape: It's over.
VO: From Warner Bros. pictures...
Arthur: Ginny!
Draco: I have to do this.
Harry: Fight back, you coward! Fight back!
HBP poster stills.
http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/movie-stills/gallery/1371/harry-potter-and-the-halfblood-prince-stills#photo0
Download new trailer 17/4
http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/halfbloodprince/trl4/Harry_Potter_4A_720.wmv.zip
http://raincloud.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/halfbloodprince/trl4/Harry_Potter_4A_Large.asx
http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/halfbloodprince/trl4/Harry_Potter_4A_1080.mov
http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/halfbloodprince/trl4/Harry_Potter_4A_Large.mov
http://raincloud.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/halfbloodprince/trl4/Harry_Potter_4A_Large.asx
http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/halfbloodprince/trl4/Harry_Potter_4A_1080.mov
http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/halfbloodprince/trl4/Harry_Potter_4A_Large.mov
New hermione poster.
http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/movie-stills/gallery/1371/harry-potter-and-the-halfblood-prince-stills
Emma to film DH epilogue.
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/04/16/exclusive-epilogue-for-harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hollows-will-be-shot-with-original-cast/
New Hbp trailer feat.Emma/Hermione.
http://ca.eonline.com/videos/v19920754001__harry_potter__sneak_peek.html
Emma and trio to film epilogue.
http://www.snitchseeker.com/harry-potter-news/david-heyman-confirms-deathly-hallows-epilogue-filming-63455/
Wednesday 15 April 2009
Burberry line.
http://www.theinsider.com/news/2019274_Harry_Potter_star_Emma_Watson_reportedly_had_a_group_of_girls_replaced_by_men_for_a_new_photoshoot
May 1st trailer preview.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2009-04-15-potter-early-look_N.htm
Tuesday 14 April 2009
HBP confirmed for July 15th 2009 premiere.
http://www.ercboxoffice.com/index.php?page=news&news_id=147
Watson is keen on Brown.
Watson, 18, announced earlier this year that she was putting her acting career on hold to focus on her studies. According to Britain's News of The World newspaper, Watson applied to several colleges in both England and the United States.
Watson reportedly toured Harvard and Yale Universities before deciding on Brown. A source told the publication Watson fell in love with Brown, and that she has a lot of friends there.
Watson reportedly toured Harvard and Yale Universities before deciding on Brown. A source told the publication Watson fell in love with Brown, and that she has a lot of friends there.
hbp 2009 summary.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemort's defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague, the well-connected and unsuspecting bon vivant Professor Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information. Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry finds himself more and more drawn to Ginny, but so is Dean Thomas. And Lavender Brown has decided that Ron is the one for her, only she hadn't counted on Romilda Vane's chocolates! And then there's Hermione, simmering with jealously but determined not to show her feelings. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.
Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemort's defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague, the well-connected and unsuspecting bon vivant Professor Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information. Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry finds himself more and more drawn to Ginny, but so is Dean Thomas. And Lavender Brown has decided that Ron is the one for her, only she hadn't counted on Romilda Vane's chocolates! And then there's Hermione, simmering with jealously but determined not to show her feelings. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.
Monday 13 April 2009
New hbp trailer due on Thurs 16th April.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Worldwide-Satellite-Trailer-bw-14913396.html
NST interview 2009.
Symbol of a modern fairy tale
British actress Emma Watson progresses from beautiful witch of Harry Potter fame to the sweetest princess.
KNOWN for her role as Hermoine in the Harry Potter films, 18-year-old Emma Watson lent her sweet voice as Princess Pea for her first animated movie The Tale of Despereaux, currently showing in cinemas nationwide.
The movie, based on a popular children’s book by Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn Dixie) tells a story about a tiny mouse Despereaux Tilling, who is born with huge ears.
An inspiring tale of bravery, redemption, love, good, evil and the power of dreams, it is directed by Rob Stevenhagen and Sam Fell, based on a screenplay by its producer Gary Ross, who was attracted to the book’s theme on humanity.
Below is an interview with Watson, courtesy of United International Pictures.
Q: Was it Despereaux himself who attracted you to the movie or was it the idea of working on your first animated feature?
A: I really loved the script, and the story. I especially liked the strong moral messages in this particular story. Also, the cast is incredible since it has so many talented actors.I am so lucky to be involved with this production.
Q: Can you describe your character in the movie, Princess Pea?
A: Princess Pea is the daughter of the King. She is very lonely and desperate because her mother has just died. Despereaux comes along to cheer her up and becomes her friend.
Q: From a beautiful witch, Hermione, to the sweetest Princess Pea, you are the symbol of a modern fairy tale. Is it difficult to keep up with it?
A: Yes, it is difficult. However, I think it is every girl’s dream to play a princess. It is amazing. I can take that one off my list (laughs).
Q: Princess Pea is a fairy tale princess, but also a teenager. What did you bring to the character from your experiences as a teenager?
A: Well, as a teenager you often feel very restricted in doing things. Your parents and other individuals in a position of authority sometimes limit what you can do. This is particularly relevant for me.
Q: The Tale of Despereaux and Ballet Shoes are the only two non-Harry Potter projects you have been working on. How did it feel?
A: It was really nice to talk about and work on something else. It was nice to do an animated film because I have not done one before.
I think that Harry Potter has been an enormous part of my life. I do feel like I am a part of the story and that the story is a part of me.
Q: Would you like to continue working in animated movies?
A: Yes, but I think I would like to move on. I would love to do another animated film, but I feel like it would be difficult to be so passionate about a film like I was with Despereaux. Despereaux has a beautiful animation style that is very unique and rich. It is very detailed and gorgeous.
Q: There are timeless messages in the story: forgiveness, bravery, love. Which one is dearest to you?
A: There are so many! I loved Miggery Sow’s story with Princess Pea where Migg really wants to be a real princess, but she is a princess in her father’s eyes at the end of the story.
I loved the message that every girl is a princess to whomever loves her, whether it be her boyfriend, brother, father figure, etc. I think that was really sweet.
Q: How was working with Sigourney Weaver, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick?
A: I was overwhelmed when I attended the press conference with Matthew Broderick on my left, and Dustin Hoffman and Sigourney Weaver on my right. I was in awe!
I would say that having the opportunity to be surrounded by such talent is something you dream about as a child. As an actress, it is amazing to be in the presence of such a prestigious and well established cast.
Q: In 2003, at the BAFTA tribute to Julie Walter, you said: “It’s completely surreal to be famous”. Five years later is it still the same?
A: Yes, it is. I feel like I am more used to the fame than I was in the past, but it is still a peculiar experience.
Q: How is it that British young actors and actresses manage to keep a low profile while Hollywood ones seem to struggle with the pressure that fame brings along?
A: I think there are different attitudes in the business.
In England actors are not put on a pedestal as much as they are in Hollywood, which seems to help.
London has a much smaller film industry, whereas in Los Angeles it’s massive. Los Angeles is completely dedicated to film, and it is hyped up a lot more.
The pressure of fame is something very hard to deal with, and I understand what it is like for many stars to deal with the pressure that fame often brings.
I sympathise with them because acting can bring about with it intrusion into your private life. The curiosity gets to a point where it gets so intense that it can be overwhelming.
For example, with Harry Potter, it seemed as though everywhere I went people recognised me. I guess it is all something that comes with being an actress or an actor. However, I do not think it is as bad in England as it is in Los Angeles.
Q: What do you think you mean to your fans? And what would you like to represent for them?
A: I bring to life a very much-loved fictional character, and so the fans have a lot of affection for the stories and the characters.
Hopefully, my fans also have this sort of affection for me as well. I hope they respect me as an actress and that they think that I work hard and do my job well.
Q: You described yourself as “a bit of a feminist”. What do you exactly mean?
A: I feel as though this term is a bit limiting. However, I am quite competitive and determined. I would say that I am a very driven person.
Q: What will you take with you after your experience working on Despereaux?
A: I loved the moral messages in it, and I learned a lot from working on it. I have worked with some amazing people. Overall, it has been a positive experience.
British actress Emma Watson progresses from beautiful witch of Harry Potter fame to the sweetest princess.
KNOWN for her role as Hermoine in the Harry Potter films, 18-year-old Emma Watson lent her sweet voice as Princess Pea for her first animated movie The Tale of Despereaux, currently showing in cinemas nationwide.
The movie, based on a popular children’s book by Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn Dixie) tells a story about a tiny mouse Despereaux Tilling, who is born with huge ears.
An inspiring tale of bravery, redemption, love, good, evil and the power of dreams, it is directed by Rob Stevenhagen and Sam Fell, based on a screenplay by its producer Gary Ross, who was attracted to the book’s theme on humanity.
Below is an interview with Watson, courtesy of United International Pictures.
Q: Was it Despereaux himself who attracted you to the movie or was it the idea of working on your first animated feature?
A: I really loved the script, and the story. I especially liked the strong moral messages in this particular story. Also, the cast is incredible since it has so many talented actors.I am so lucky to be involved with this production.
Q: Can you describe your character in the movie, Princess Pea?
A: Princess Pea is the daughter of the King. She is very lonely and desperate because her mother has just died. Despereaux comes along to cheer her up and becomes her friend.
Q: From a beautiful witch, Hermione, to the sweetest Princess Pea, you are the symbol of a modern fairy tale. Is it difficult to keep up with it?
A: Yes, it is difficult. However, I think it is every girl’s dream to play a princess. It is amazing. I can take that one off my list (laughs).
Q: Princess Pea is a fairy tale princess, but also a teenager. What did you bring to the character from your experiences as a teenager?
A: Well, as a teenager you often feel very restricted in doing things. Your parents and other individuals in a position of authority sometimes limit what you can do. This is particularly relevant for me.
Q: The Tale of Despereaux and Ballet Shoes are the only two non-Harry Potter projects you have been working on. How did it feel?
A: It was really nice to talk about and work on something else. It was nice to do an animated film because I have not done one before.
I think that Harry Potter has been an enormous part of my life. I do feel like I am a part of the story and that the story is a part of me.
Q: Would you like to continue working in animated movies?
A: Yes, but I think I would like to move on. I would love to do another animated film, but I feel like it would be difficult to be so passionate about a film like I was with Despereaux. Despereaux has a beautiful animation style that is very unique and rich. It is very detailed and gorgeous.
Q: There are timeless messages in the story: forgiveness, bravery, love. Which one is dearest to you?
A: There are so many! I loved Miggery Sow’s story with Princess Pea where Migg really wants to be a real princess, but she is a princess in her father’s eyes at the end of the story.
I loved the message that every girl is a princess to whomever loves her, whether it be her boyfriend, brother, father figure, etc. I think that was really sweet.
Q: How was working with Sigourney Weaver, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick?
A: I was overwhelmed when I attended the press conference with Matthew Broderick on my left, and Dustin Hoffman and Sigourney Weaver on my right. I was in awe!
I would say that having the opportunity to be surrounded by such talent is something you dream about as a child. As an actress, it is amazing to be in the presence of such a prestigious and well established cast.
Q: In 2003, at the BAFTA tribute to Julie Walter, you said: “It’s completely surreal to be famous”. Five years later is it still the same?
A: Yes, it is. I feel like I am more used to the fame than I was in the past, but it is still a peculiar experience.
Q: How is it that British young actors and actresses manage to keep a low profile while Hollywood ones seem to struggle with the pressure that fame brings along?
A: I think there are different attitudes in the business.
In England actors are not put on a pedestal as much as they are in Hollywood, which seems to help.
London has a much smaller film industry, whereas in Los Angeles it’s massive. Los Angeles is completely dedicated to film, and it is hyped up a lot more.
The pressure of fame is something very hard to deal with, and I understand what it is like for many stars to deal with the pressure that fame often brings.
I sympathise with them because acting can bring about with it intrusion into your private life. The curiosity gets to a point where it gets so intense that it can be overwhelming.
For example, with Harry Potter, it seemed as though everywhere I went people recognised me. I guess it is all something that comes with being an actress or an actor. However, I do not think it is as bad in England as it is in Los Angeles.
Q: What do you think you mean to your fans? And what would you like to represent for them?
A: I bring to life a very much-loved fictional character, and so the fans have a lot of affection for the stories and the characters.
Hopefully, my fans also have this sort of affection for me as well. I hope they respect me as an actress and that they think that I work hard and do my job well.
Q: You described yourself as “a bit of a feminist”. What do you exactly mean?
A: I feel as though this term is a bit limiting. However, I am quite competitive and determined. I would say that I am a very driven person.
Q: What will you take with you after your experience working on Despereaux?
A: I loved the moral messages in it, and I learned a lot from working on it. I have worked with some amazing people. Overall, it has been a positive experience.
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