The dream role Emma Watson has never played: “I just need to write the damn thing myself”
Emma Watson may have become synonymous with the role of Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise, but there are some surprising drawbacks to being in a cinematic saga worth nearly $8billion.
The Harry Potter series was such a cultural phenomenon that it’s been interesting to track what each of the young stars have done in the years since the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 brought the series to a climactic end in 2011. Based on how beloved they were playing the witches and wizards of JK Rowling’s magical universe, it’s been a challenge for each of these young stars to differentiate themselves.
Daniel Radcliffe has gone on to become a real Broadway star and won a Tony Award for his brilliant performance in the revival of Merrily We Roll Along, and Rupert Grint has found a lane for himself in genre stories, including an acclaimed role on the Apple TV horror series Servant. Even Harry Melling, who played the role of Harry’s obnoxious cousin Dudley, has proved to be a terrific actor in several Coen brothers movies and the beloved romantic dramedy Pillion.
As for Watson, roles outside of Harry Potter have been more intermittent, and although she’s been in a few disasters, Watson said that she had a positive experience working on The Perks of Being A Wallflower, The Bling Ring, and Noah, largely because of the directors involved.
“There’s different things you get out of different types of projects, and you can’t expect to get everything in one bundle,” Watson said. “Perks was really special because I made friends that I’ll probably have for life. With Bling Ring, through learning about the character, I learned more about myself. On Noah, I ended up doing months’ worth of research on one scene for the movie.”
Although she noted that she learned a lot from Stephen Chbosky, Sofia Coppola, and Darren Aronofsky, she has some desires for her career that have yet to be fulfilled, claiming, “In terms of my next project, I really want to do a romantic comedy”.
She explained why it hasn’t yet happened, adding, “I’ve been looking for the perfect script. I’m getting to the point where I’m like, ‘I just need to write the damn thing myself’, because it’s so hard to find something that’s original and really funny, but I’d love to do something like that, just because the last two or three movies I did were kind of heavy.”
Watson isn’t the only person who has bemoaned the lack of romantic comedies, as it’s a genre that has strangely fallen out of favour on the big screen, particularly in the post-Covid era, such that many of the best of the genre in recent years, such as Hit Man and Palm Springs, were sent directly to streaming services, which prevented audiences from getting the experience of seeing them with a crowd.
The actor did get to showcase both her sense of humour and ability to play a romantic lead within Greta Gerwig’s beloved 2019 adaptation of Little Women, even though it wasn’t a rom-com per se, and while she will always be most closely associated with the Wizarding World, Watson was able to disappear into the role, becoming a believable sister to Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen, proving that the right rom-com script can do her wonders.
