Emma Watson Almost Quit “Harry Potter” Because Of How Famous It Made Her As A Child

December 30, 2021 / Posted by:

In the 20th Anniversary special of the Harry Potter series–Return to Hogwarts which airs on HBO Max on New Year’s Day–Emma Watson opens up about how she became world-famous as a child and her struggles with fame nearly caused her to quit the series.

31-year-old Emma was 11 years old when the first Harry Potter movie came out in 2001 and she went on to make 7 more movies. She played Hermione Granger, the genius friend of Chosen One, Harry Potter (played by Daniel Radcliffe), and the lovable oaf, Ron Weasley (played by Rupert Grint). People says that Emma, Daniel, and Rupert got together for the HBO Max special to talk about their experiences as the most-famous children in the world. Tom Felton (who played Draco Malfoy) talked about how hard Emma had it:

“People definitely forget what she took on and how gracefully she did it,” Tom Felton said about Watson’s superstardom. Felton noted that while he had his “cronies” and Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint had each other to lean on during their rise to fame, Watson was “not only younger but she was by herself.”

…Watson even recalled rereading a diary entry from that period of her life where she felt especially lonely. “I think I was scared,” Watson told Grint. “I don’t know if you ever felt like it got to a tipping point where you were like, “This is kind of forever now.””

Like his costar, Grint admitted that he also had thoughts about leaving the franchise. “I had moments like that kind of all the way through,” he told Watson. “I also had similar feelings to Emma kind of contemplating what life would be like if I called it a day, but we never really spoke about it. I guess we were just kind of going through it at our own pace. We were kind of in the moment at the time. It just didn’t really occur to us that we were all having similar feelings.”

“The fame thing had finally hit home in a big way,” Watson added.

David Yates, who directed the fifth movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, also spoke in the special about how Emma had thoughts of leaving the franchise. Emma wanted to go to school.  Of course, Emma went on to graduate from Brown with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature.

So Emma struggled with fame as a child and almost gave up the spotlight and huge checks for privacy. Hold onto something sturdy, because the earth is going to shake from horrible stage parents of teen influencers fainting left and right from the thought of that.

Pic: Warner Bros./YouTube

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