If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are, we can all be free.
Don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do or achieve. Do what you want to do and be who you want to be. Just encourage and include each other, don’t ostracize the gender in front of you
“Books gave me a way to connect with my father, some of my most precious and treasured moments…I just remember him reading to me before bed and how he used to do all the different voices. I grew up on film sets, and books were my connection to the outside world. They were my connection to my friends back at school because if I was reading what they were reading we’d have something in common. Later in life, they became an escape, a means of empowerment, a friend I could rely on.” - Emma Watson
I could never really imagine myself doing one thing, and I’m pretty sure that I’ll end up doing four or five different things. I want to be a Renaissance woman. I want to paint, and I want to write, and I want to act, and I want to just do everything.
I watch interviews that I did when the first Harry Potter movie came out and I was so lost! I would think, ‘What do young girls talk about? What do they say?’ ‘I like going shopping and I have a crush on Brad Pitt.’ And I had no idea who Brad Pitt really was! I hadn’t seen a single movie that Brad Pitt had been in, but this just seemed like the right thing to say. It makes me sad because I see this girl trying so much to fit in. The truth was I loved school. 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!
I guess what really forms you as a person is what you do within your family to receive love or attention. In my family, what you had to do to receive attention was to have good conversation at the dinner table or for me to do well at school, and those were really my focuses because that was what was valued the most.
For me, Beauty was the perfect, most joyful thing to do… There was something connected about Hermione and Belle, and it was good to be reminded that I am an actress; this is what I do. The film is pure escapism.
Emma Watson for Elle Magazine, 2017
