“I was interested”: how Emma Watson found an unlikely mentor in Patti Smith
Now that we know what the new young Harry Potter trio are going to look like following the release of the first trailer of HBO Max’s reboot of JK Rowling’s magnum opus, we’ll have to prepare ourselves for a period of time where people will say a lot of things like, ‘Well, yeah, but he’s no Daniel Radcliffe and she’s nothing like Emma Watson‘.
While that was always going to be the case, it was perhaps surprising that while we got some dialogue in the trailer from the new Harry, Ron and Hagrid, the new Hermione Grainger, played by Arabella Stanton, didn’t get a line; in fact, her contribution was reduced to a single, fleeting glance, which didn’t give us much idea as to what she’s going to be like at Hogwarts at all.
Of course, after eight movies, it is Watson that we imagine as Hermione, and that’s not going to change for some time, possibly even after the new eight-part adaptation of The Philosopher’s Stone hits screens this Christmas. And that’s justified, because over a ten-year span, she made that character her own, getting over some understandably dodgy acting as a ten-year-old to end up as one of the highlights of the spectacular final two Deathly Hallows movies in 2010 and 2011.
More recently, she seems to have essentially opted for a very early retirement: she is yet to make another film since 2019’s period drama Little Women and has instead concentrated on doing quite a lot of activism, which alternately has gone down well with some of the public and not so well with others. She also launched a gin company, which is worth millions, because she didn’t have enough money after making north of £50million from Harry Potter.
She did have a long spell of acting once the Potter films concluded, however, landing plum roles in all kinds of titles like the Russell Crowe Bible epic Noah, the indie comedy Perks of Being a Wallflower and true life ‘sassy teens steal a load of stuff’ drama The Bling Ring, but probably the one that stands out is her lead in the Disney reboot of Beauty and the Beast, a live action fairytale that did enormous numbers at the box office. It perhaps also underlined the age-old tropes that men are only worth marrying once they’re not ugly anymore and live in a castle, and that girls should grow up wanting to be princesses who live in castles.
Given that Watson is an avowed feminist, there might be a clash there, but what wasn’t a clash was her meeting with ’70s music icon Patti Smith, who ended up being something of a mentor to her after she attended one of her concerts.
Smith has often spoken about how she actually doesn’t like being referred to as a ‘female artist’, and in terms of equality, is more concerned about the poverty gap. However, she still gave Watson some advice about dealing with press attention, as the actor told Variety, “She said I needed to find a way to block out the noise”.
Smith, for her part, was impressed that Watson managed to ignore any attention from being in a crowded space like a rock concert and just enjoy it, adding in that distinctive voice that sounds like rasping autumn leaves, “I was interested that despite everyone watching her, she still managed to dance and interact with her friend that night as any girl her age might”.
Smith is probably best known for her 1975 album Horses, but is still at it 50 years later and is currently in the middle of a world tour, including UK dates in May.
