Emma Watson Stepped Away From Acting Because She ‘Didn’t Have a Voice’

Emma Watson shed some light on why she hasn’t appeared in a movie since Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, which was filmed in 2018. The truth is, the actress got tired of promoting projects that she didn’t have any creative involvement in.

“I was held accountable in a way that I began to find really frustrating, because I didn’t have a voice, I didn’t have a say,” she told The Financial Times. “I started to realize that I only wanted to stand in front of things where if someone was going to give me flak about it, I could say, in a way that didn’t make me hate myself, ‘Yes, I screwed up, it was my decision, I should have done better.’”

Watson is known, of course, for playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise, but the actress has also starred in other popular films like The Bling Ring, Beauty and the Beast, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Circle.

But even before she stepped away from the screen, she’s long been known for expanding her horizons beyond acting. She studied at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated in 2014. That same year, she was appointed as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. She also founded the popular intersectional feminist book club Our Shared Shelf.

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Last year, she wrote and directed a short film campaign for Prada Paradoxe perfume. And this past weekend, she announced that she’s starting a luxury gin brand called Renais alongside her bother, Alex Watson.

She clearly has a lot going for her outside of acting.

Why Emma Watson Stepped Away From Acting

“I wasn’t very happy, if I’m being honest, I think I felt a bit caged,” she explained of why she hasn’t done an acting job in nearly five years.

“The thing I found really hard was that I had to go out and sell something that I really didn’t have very much control over. To stand in front of a film and have every journalist be able to say, ‘How does this align with your viewpoint?’ It was very difficult to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process,” she said.

Does She Plan to Go Back to Acting?

Yes, don’t worry — Emma Watson hasn’t completely retired from acting.

“Yes, absolutely,” she said of whether or not she’d be open to doing another movie. “But I’m happy to sit and wait for the next right thing. I love what I do. It’s finding a way to do it where I don’t have to fracture myself into different faces and people. And I just don’t want to switch into robot mode anymore. Does that make sense?”

Main Image: Emma Watson in Little Women. Photo credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment