After I gave my speech [the #HeforShe launch at the UN] there was a website threatening to release naked pictures of me. I knew it was a hoax, but I think a lot of people that were close to me knew gender equality was an issue but didn’t think it was that urgent, that it was a thing of the past. I was raging, it made me so angry, I was like, this is why I have to be doing this. If anything, if they were trying to put me off it, it did the opposite. 

I really empathize with people and I can’t help but take care of them and protect them, sometimes in a kind of unhealthy way. I’m definitely a caretaker. I have to really pull myself back on the reins and say, ‘Put yourself first. Love yourself first.’ I’ve had dark times – this voice in my head that makes me pretty hard on myself, I really don’t let anything go. I’ve been learning that I have to try and be a bit kinder and take care of myself a bit better.

I think it is right I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decisions that affect my life. I think it is right that socially, I am afforded the same respect as men.

“Sometimes I hear myself in interviews and I feel like I’m in that skit from Extras where one actor is taking the piss out of celebrities who are like, “I’m so normal! Look at me being really normal, doing all of this normal stuff!” You can take it to a point where it’s like, “Well, yeah, my life is kind of weird and I can’t pretend that I live exactly like everyone else,” because it’s an extraordinary set of circumstances to be under, so it’s kind of finding that middle ground. But yeah—sometimes I hear myself back and I’m like, “This just sounds like bullshit.”  — Emma Watson

“It’s called the impostor syndrome. It’s almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because I’m just going, Any moment, someone’s going to find out I’m a total fraud, and that I don’t deserve any of what I’ve achieved. I can’t possibly live up to what everyone thinks I am and what everyone’s expectations of me are. It’s weird—sometimes [success] can be incredibly validating, but sometimes it can be incredibly unnerving and throw your balance off a bit, because you’re trying to reconcile how you feel about yourself with how the rest of the world perceives you.”

You only learn from experience, so as much as someone can tell you things, you have to go out there and make your own mistakes in order to learn.

I feel like young girls are told they have to be a princess, and be delicate and fragile, and that’s bulls**t. I identify much more with the idea of being a warrior, being a fighter. If I was going to be a princess, I’d be a warrior princess, definitely.

“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.”

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.”}