The level of questioning I was under, coming at such young age. People asking me, “What do you think of this? Who are you, who are you, who are you?” I felt so inadequate because I just didn’t have answers yet. I had so many friends who had a clear sense of self. Who knew that they liked certain things, like the smell of grass, or what their favorite color was. I envied those girls because I was so unsure of myself. I questioned everything. I was terrified by the level of interest in me. I spent most of my time trying to convince everyone I was incredibly boring because I needed privacy and a minute to figure myself out. I used to have to go numb and close myself off, for example on the red carpet, just to get through it.
“If you want to run for Prime Minister, you can. If you don’t, that’s wonderful, too. Shave your armpits, don’t shave them, wear flats one day, heels the next. These things are so irrelevant and surface to what it is all really about, and I wish people wouldn’t get caught up in that. We want to empower women to do exactly what they want, to be true to themselves, to have the opportunities to develop.”
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.
Feminism is not here to dictate to you. It’s not prescriptive, it’s not dogmatic. All we are here to do is give you a choice. If you want to run for President, you can. If you don’t, that’s wonderful, too. I’m lucky I was raised to believe that my opinion at the dinner table was valuable. My mum and I spoke as loudly as my brothers.
It’s amazing people get so detached from what they eat and what they wear. No one has any contact with how things are made that are put in their body and put in their mouths and I just find it alarming that no one questions it. Emma Watson
As a younger woman, that pressure of looking perfect got me down, but I’ve made my peace with it. With airbrushing and digital manipulation, fashion can project an unobtainable image that’s dangerously unhealthy. I’m excited about the aging process. I’m more interested in women who aren’t perfect. They’re more compelling.
What I find difficult about photo shoots is the line between playing a character—you’re being asked by the photographer to take on a role like you would in a movie—and being a fancier version of yourself. It’s about finding that line between being spontaneous and open to direction, but also trying to explain to photographers that the “me” is often taken out of context because it has all of this other stuff attached to it. Photographers want to reinvent you, to take you somewhere else, to show you in a completely different way. They look at your previous work, and try to figure out what they can do to show a new side of you.
“It’s difficult to hear criticism from people you consider your peers and who you believe are on the same side. But, you know, I just carried on, and some of the stuff made me more thoughtful and questioning of my approach. But some of it you just have to not engage with, and you become more robust. And, of course, sometimes you just have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Feminism can be humorous, and we all have a different way of approaching that. I often wonder what mischief I can make to spread the word in a playful way. You can’t take everything in life seriously, can you?”
For me, it’s the difference between being able to have a life and not. I’ll say, ‘I will sit here and answer every single Harry Potter fandom question you have but I just can’t do a picture’. I have met fans that have my face tattooed on their body. I’ve met people who used the Harry Potter books to get through cancer. I don’t know how to explain it, but the Harry Potter phenomenon steps into a different zone.