Teen Hollywood and Emma.

Hermione has grown up beautifully. Emma Watson started her role in the "Harry Potter" films at age ten and is now a gorgeous young woman of eighteen. While on a break from the "Harry" films, Emma chose to play her first voice role in the animated film The Tale of Despereaux based upon the popular book by Kate DiCamillo who also wrote "Because of Winn-Dixie".

Emma verbally enacts Princess Pea, a sad young woman trapped in her gloomy castle after her mom the queen dies and the king can't get over his grief.

Emma is now taking a "gap year" before finishing her studies at college and, last year, starred in a BBC drama called "Ballet Shoes" playing an orphan girl trying to follow her personal dreams. One of Emma's personal dreams is to one day sing and dance in a musical!



We sat down with the well-loved star at a fancy beachside hotel in Santa Monica, Ca. recently. Emma looked quite grown up, classy and beautiful in sleek black slacks and an ivory, one shoulder blouse with a drape neck. Her hair is still long and wavy (OMG, remember the first "Potter" film? Hermione's hair was like a giant furball that the cat tossed up! Those days are long behind Emma). Let's talk "Despereaux", princess and "Potter"....



TeenHollywood: Did you have to audition for Pea and if so, what was your audition process like?

Emma: The audition process was after I read the script. I was so desperate to play the role and so excited and enthusiastic about it that they very kindly gave me the role because I expressed so much interest in it. I loved it. I really loved it.


TeenHollywood: What did you like about your character in "Despereaux"?


Emma: She's basically your quite generic princess. She's very beautiful and she lives in the Land of Dor and everything's great, but then she loses her mother, and what makes it worse is that she also loses her father because he goes into this state of grieving, and he just kind of locks himself away from his people and his responsibilities and also from his role as a father.



TeenHollywood: That's sad.


Emma: Well, she's pretty lonely, she's pretty isolated, she's kind of literally locked up in this tower, and she can't really be part of the real world. So I thought it was interesting and felt very sad for her. I thought the conversations she had with Despereaux were really charming, and I really fell in love with the script and the book, more than the character.


TeenHollywood: This is a wonderful fairy tale. Both "Despereaux" and the Potter films are "otherworldly". Can you talk about the similarities?



Emma: The land of Dor feels quite magical so I guess it has that in common with Harry Potter. And also The Tale of Despereaux is (also) based on a book by Kate DiCamillo. Apart from that I think they're very different stories and have very different messages. Despereaux (a tiny, brave mouse with very big ears) has such a strong character and identity of its own.



TeenHollywood: Was this voice actor thing a fun departure for you?


Emma: It was so fun for me to work in a completely different medium, doing an animated feature, I'd never done that before, and it was a lot of fun and I'm massively proud of it.


TeenHollywood: You have verbal exchanges with the little mouse voiced by Matthew Broderick. Were you ever in the same recording studio working at the same time with him?

Emma: Yes. Matthew very kindly came in and did a couple of days with me.


TeenHollywood: Wasn't it quite new for you recording a voice alone in a booth?


Emma: Yeah, it did take me a little bit of time. But when you work on a film you do voice recording and if anything goes wrong, you do a couple days of ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement). But a lot my performance is quite physical in the film because I've been kidnapped and there's a rat in my room and whatever. It was hard trying to get all of that into my voice; the emotion and the out of breath and the screaming. It was fun.

TeenHollywood: But, when Matthew wasn't there, wasn't it hard talking to just "nothing"?

Emma: I was actually given a toy Despereaux, about this big, who I could speak to, so I had kind of a substitute. So yeah, it was really interesting and great fun.


TeenHollywood: Can you tell us where you are in Harry Potter land right now?

Emma: Yes, we begin filming the seventh one in February, and the sixth one will be released in July of next year.


TeenHollywood: And the seventh is going to be in two parts, and you're going to work on it for a year?

Emma: Yes, but we're a long way off a film being released or a film being made, so to be honest I don't have a huge amount to talk about.


TeenHollywood: Okay then, back to Despereaux. Can you talk about what you think the message of the movie is?

Emma: There are so many good ones. I've watched a lot of animated films and I love animated films, so I feel like I can speak with a bit of knowledge. It felt really different to anything that I've ever seen before, because it felt like it wasn't patronizing to children. The messages that are in the film feel really profound and philosophical, and I loved the ending; a serious ending about forgiveness.



TeenHollywood: Everyone says they are sorry.



Emma: I thought that was incredible that there is this kind of chain reaction that happens where the king was hurt so he hurt his daughter, and Pea was hurting so she hurt the servant girl, and hurt Roscuro (a rat played by Dustin Hoffman) and the whole thing kind of just took off and just by one person saying 'sorry', and really meaning it, everything could kind of be restored, It was amazing. And my other favorite message was that 'every girl is a princess'. I thought that was such a beautiful message, that Mig (a servant girl in the castle), in her father's eyes, is a princess and I just thought that was beautiful. I really love it, it works on lots and lots of different levels. I don't think it's just a children's film, I think anyone can go and see it and get something from it.


TeenHollywood: Did you relate to the character of Pea in any way. You're English and you live in a castle of course...(we're kidding on the castle thing).


Emma: Of course. Everyone who's British lives in castles in the middle of the countryside. I never lost anyone close to me luckily so I can't relate directly to that experience and that's probably the biggest one for Pea but I guess everyone knows how it feels to feel lonely and isolated at times. I think it's part of being human and so I guess that.



TeenHollywood: Was it difficult coming back a lot to record the voice?


Emma: The Tale of Despereaux was made over quite a long period of time so I was kind of brought in for a couple days here and there and then they'd progress a bit further or something would change and then I'd come and do another 3 or 4 days. So it was quite spread out and was a long process so, in that sense, but it wasn't like a very intense work climate that made it difficult.


TeenHollywood: Was it difficult switching from "magic" school girl to Princess?


Emma: No, I don't think so. I guess I have paranoid moments where I will hear something in my own voice or I'll go 'Gosh, did I sound like Hermione then?' You know, I definitely have an awareness of it because I've played (Hermione) for so long and she is so distinctive and she is so much a part of me. So yes, I definitely have an awareness of it but Pea was more gentle. I instantly felt a different person or character playing her. I definitely had a sense that... It worked out okay. I was worried about it but it worked out okay, I think. [She laughs]Teen