She [Belle] remains curious, compassionate and open-minded. And that’s the kind of woman I would want to embody as a role model, given the choice. There’s this kind of outsider quality that Belle had, and the fact she had this really empowering defiance of what was expected of her. In a strange way, she challenges the status quo of the place she lives in, and I found that really inspiring. She manages to keep her integrity and have a completely independent point of view. She’s not easily swayed by other people’s perspective—not swayed by fear-mongering or scapegoating.
“Call me a
‘diva’, call me a ‘feminazi’, call me ‘difficult’, call me a ‘First World
feminist’, call me whatever you want, it’s not going to stop me from trying to
do the right thing and make sure that the right thing happens. Because it
doesn’t just affect me, it affects all the other women who are in this with me,
and it affects all the other men who are in this with me, too.”
Emma Watson photographed by Alasdair McLellan for British Vogue // December 2019.
“It is always surprising for me, to see how long this period of time is, where I have come and from where I started. It is pleasant to follow that journey.”