Looks like your only chance to see Emma Watson on the big screen for the next year will be by watching “Harry Potter” reruns.
The actress, best known for portraying wizard whiz Hermione Granger, revealed in the latest issue of Paper Magazine that she plans to take a year-long break from acting to instead focus on her work with the United Nations’ HeForShe gender-equality project and for her own personal betterment.
“I’m taking a year away from acting to focus on two things, really,” Watson said to feminist writer bell hooks for the mag. “My own personal development is one…My own personal task is to read a book a week…I almost thought about going and doing a year of gender studies, then I realized that I was learning so much by being on the ground and just speaking with people and doing my reading.”
As for her work with HeForShe, Watson explains that there are several plans in the works, including a HeForShe IMPACT champions team comprised of 10 CEOs who will release to the media what their companies look like internally.
There will also be a HeForShe arts week and university tour.
“I’m on my journey with this and it might change, but I can tell you that what is really liberating and empowering me through being involved in feminism is that for me the biggest liberation has been that so much of the self-critiquing is gone,” Watson says.
The actress adds that though she spent most of her teens trying to detach herself from Hermione, she eventually realized that they really do have a lot in common.
“At first I was really trying to say, ‘I’m not like Hermione. I’m into fashion and I’m much cooler than she is,’ and then I came to a place of acceptance. ‘Actually, we do have a lot in common. There are obviously differences, but there are a lot of ways that I’m very similar.’ And I stopped fighting that!”