Emma Watson Opens Up About Wanting to Quit the HARRY POTTER Franchise
Twenty years after Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was released, the cast has reunited for an HBO Max special, Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, where they look back and talk about their time working on the magical franchise.
During that reunion, Emma Watson opened up about how she seriously considered quitting the franchise and walking away from the role of Hermione Granger. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix director David Yates brought up the fact that Watson wanted to quit, and Watson acknowledged the situation, saying that she was lonely at that particular time in her life and experience. She said:
"I think I was scared. I don't know if you ever felt like it got to a tipping point where you were like, ‘This is kind of forever now.’ It was around the time of Order of the Phoenix when things started getting spicy for all of us."
Watson went on to talk about the fans and how they genuinely wanted her to succeed, and that the fame had "finally hit home" for her:
"The fame thing had finally hit home – in a big way. No-one had to convince me to see it through. The fans genuinely wanted me to succeed, and they all genuinely have each other's backs. How great is that?"
Watson wasn’t the only member of that cast that was having those feelings. Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley went on to add:
"I also had sort of similar feelings to Emma, contemplating what life would be like if I called it a day. We never really spoke about it. I guess we were just going through it at our own pace, we were kind of in the moment at the time. It just didn't really occur to us that we were all probably kind of having similar feelings."
These kids grew up making those Harry Potter movies and playing these wonderful characters. The pressure that was on these kids must’ve been pretty heavy at times, and it’s totally understandable that would have feeling of getting out of there to move on with their lives and do something new and feel some kind of normality.
In the end, Watson, Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe pushed through together and made eight great films together!
Source: Digital Spy