Emma Watson explains why she’s ‘so glad’ she stepped back from acting

‘Little Women’ actor said: ‘I have this feeling of having my own voice and creative space’

Emma Watson has revealed she is “so glad” she stepped away from acting after 2019’s Little Women.

The 33-year-old has been in the public eye since she played Hermione Granger at the age of 10 in 2001’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

“I’m just so glad that I did [step away from acting] because I have this feeling of having my own voice and creative space and sovereignty in some way that I don’t think I did before – more autonomy,” Watson told Vogue.

“I’m so glad that I allowed things to be messy for a minute and to really allow myself to not know [what’s next], because the knowing that I’ve come to, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

Watson added that her time in Hollywood had disabused her of the notion that success necessarily leads to happiness. “I get a frontrow seat [with] some of the most successful, beautiful, incredible people in the world,” she said.

“And when you have that seat it becomes very, very clear that there is just absolutely no level of success that will make you in any way happy or content if you do not like who you are or enjoy what you’re doing when no one’s watching.”

Emma Watson (centre) with the cast of Harry Potter in 2004 (Getty Images)

Watson’s only screen credit since Little Women came in last year’s unscripted Harry Potter reunion special.

Earlier this year, Watson explained her four-year absence from acting by saying the industry had made her feel “caged”.

“I wasn’t very happy, if I’m being honest,” she told the Financial Times. “I think I felt a bit caged.

“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.”

Watson, who has also starred in films such as 2012’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower and 2017’s live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, added: “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.

“And I started to realise 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.’”

However, Watson did say she plans to return to acting at some point in the future.