From adorable ingenue to fashion icon, there's no doubt we're spellbound by Emma Watson.
What would it be like to be 21 years old and have already achieved the kind of staggering fame and fortune that is known only to a handful of people around the globe? It’s not a fantasy that most people can even begin to relate to, but it’s a reality for Emma Watson. After making a name—and a small empire—for herself as the quick-witted witch Hermione Granger in what we’ll call the “Harry Potter phenomenon,” Watson is perched on the brink of adulthood. So, now that the wizard has uttered his last spell, the world is waiting to see if Watson—who was cast in the role when she was only nine— is able to emerge as something, well, a little less witchy. It’s a pivotal moment when the weight of the spotlight could feel leaden.
It’s fitting, then, that My Week with Marilyn, out in November, is Watson’s first film since the book closed on Potter. Watson plays a stylist who worked with Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) on the last film of her heartbreaking career. Although they’re both Hollywood blondes, that’s where the parallel ends. Watson is no whispering bombshell; she is decidedly more practical than that. “I can’t remember very much of my life when I wasn’t famous,” she explains simply, now settled in London. “I haven’t really known anything different. There have been times when my life was very odd, though. I could come from a day at school when I’d be doing math one minute and then changing into a premiere dress the next."
The fact that the daughter of two British barristers signed up to study English, history and art at the Ivy League school Brown University at the very pinnacle of her fame (when some other starlets end up scoring their first DUI arrest) is a tribute to her steely work ethic. But one can’t help but wonder if she feels like she has something to prove. “Schooling is important to me,” she says. “Having another part to me means that I don’t just feel valued for the way I look.”
More on Emma's blooming career on the next page...
