Emma Watson Reveals ‘Soul-Destroying’ Part Of Being An Actor

Emma Watson is coming clean about her least favorite part of being an actor.

The “Harry Potter” star last appeared on screen in Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of “Little Women,” and while she said she misses the creative side, she told Hollywood Authentic that she found the task of promoting a film afterward “soul-destroying.”

She compared landing her role as the young witch Hermione Granger at age 10 to winning the lottery, but explained how a “bigger component” of the job was “selling” the projects, which she felt clashed with the idea that films are a “piece of art.”

“The balance of that can get quite thrown off,” Watson went on. “I think I’ll be honest and straightforward and say: I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul-destroying.”

The “Beauty and the Beast” star also called the pressure to maintain a polished public persona exhausting.

“I think what’s interesting about being an actor is, there’s a tendency to sort of fracture yourself into multiple personalities,” she said. “I’m not just talking about the roles you play, but having the weight of a public persona, that sort of needs constant feeding and sprucing and glamorizing. It’s very energy-intensive stuff.”

Watson did add how she misses the “art” of filmmaking and the opportunity to disappear into a role.

“The minute the camera rolls, and getting to just completely forget about everything else in the world other than that one moment — it’s such an intense form of meditation,” she said. “Because you just cannot be anywhere else. It’s so freeing. I miss that profoundly. But I don’t miss the pressure.”

Since finishing “Harry Potter” and later pulling back from the entertainment industry, Watson has been focused on her education. She graduated from Brown University with a BA in English in 2014 and is pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing at Oxford University.