ACTRESS AND ACTIVIST ENGLANDI don’t want other people to decide who I am. I want to decide that for myself.
—EMMA WATSON
Emma ran through the lines in her head. She knew this scene backward and forward. She had been practicing for weeks, videotaping herself reading lines and watching her deliveries over and over again, figuring out where she could do better. She began at nine in the morning and didn’t stop until dinnertime.
Sitting on either side of her at this final audition were Daniel and Rupert. She’d only met them a few times, but they seemed nice enough. Both were very funny. She hoped they all got parts, but mostly she hoped she would get to play Hermione.
As the director got the lights and cameras ready to record their first screen test, Emma allowed herself to think about her competition. Hundreds and hundreds of girls were trying out for the first Harry Potter movie, and every one of them wanted the lead role. Emma should have been nervous—her parents certainly were—but she felt calm.
An avid reader, Emma is also part of the London-based organization Books on the Underground, where members secretly plant books around underground transit centers. The Day after Donald Trump won the presidential election in November 2016, Emma shared her favorite titles throughout New York’s 23rd Street C and E line stations while being interviewed by Vanity Fair. Her idea was to “spread a little bit of love.”
“Scene eight, take four. Mark!” a crewmember called, and snap went the clapperboard.1
The three children began. It was a Hermione-centered scene. She read from a history of magic book, looking for clues about Nicholas Flamel and the Philosopher’s Stone, as Rupert and Daniel mostly sat and listened. Emma delivered each line perfectly, enunciating each word—never stumbling. Her eyes sparked with mischief, and her mouth twitched in an almost grin. She looked like a girl who knows way more than everyone around her. She looked like Hermione.
Out of the hundreds of girls trying out, Emma knew from the very first audition that she would get the part. She could just feel it.
Emma Watson had to come back for eight different auditions! But she was right—she did get that part. And the rest is history. At just nine years old, Emma would bring one of the most beloved heroines in all of literature to the big screen: brilliant Muggle-born witch Hermione Granger. And her outstanding performance would win her the hearts of millions of fans around the world for decades to come.
Emma Watson, one of the most famous British actresses, was actually born in Paris, France, in 1990. When she was five, her parents divorced and the family moved back to England, where Emma lived with her mother and visited her dad on the weekends. Emma’s parents were lawyers, and she went to a fancy private school in Oxford. She was an excellent student. “I always loved school,” she says. “I was a proper, proper nerd.”2 She also discovered that she loved acting. She took acting classes and was soon getting the leads in school plays. “Whenever there was a part at school, I went for it,” she remembers.3 Very early, by age seven, Emma knew she wanted to be an actress.
While Emma was auditioning for Harry Potter, her father cooked a chicken dinner and gave her the wishbone. Even though she was confident she would get it, Emma wished to play Hermione. That lucky wishbone is still in Emma’s jewelry box.
In 1999, casting directors scoured all of England looking for the perfect children to play the lead roles in the soon-to-be biggest movie franchise of all time: Harry Potter. The books were already hugely popular, and nine-year-old Emma was a big fan. She believed she was perfect for Hermione and desperately wanted the part. But thousands of girls auditioned. Emma’s parents tried to keep her hopes in check—they didn’t think she’d get it. But Emma knew: “I just felt like that part belonged to me. I know it sounds crazy, but from that first audition, I always knew.”4
She was right, of course. Emma had to worry through eight auditions, but eventually, everyone realized what she already knew: Emma was Hermione, through and through.
Emma once confessed that the most difficult scenes she ever had to film were the ones where she had to kiss Daniel or Rupert.
Of course, the movies were huge. Harry Potter is the second-highest-grossing film series ever, earning $7.7 billion worldwide.5 Emma also earned great reviews for her performance. A reviewer at epinions.com wrote of the first movie, “I was especially impressed by young Emma Watson’s masterful portrayal of Hermione Granger. I have trouble believing that Harry Potter is her first film, and I suspect she is destined for a great career.”6 Maybe this reviewer had some magical divination skills?
While Emma was at Brown, she took acting classes! She was worried that after so many years of playing one character, she wouldn’t know how to play any others.
Filming the movies wasn’t easy, however. For ten years, Emma worked eleven months out of twelve. She woke up every day around six in the morning and got home around nine at night. On set, they tried to keep life as normal as possible for the kid actors—they had “school” for five hours a day with a tutor. Emma’s costars Daniel and Rupert became like brothers to her. And thank goodness they got along, because they filmed eight consecutive movies together—over the course of practically their entire childhoods.
Over those ten years, Emma got better and better at acting, winning more and more awards. But she definitely gave up a lot of normal life. She couldn’t do sleepovers or sports. Paparazzi mobbed her whenever she went out. In 2007, when she was supposed to renew her contract for the sixth movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Emma nearly quit the films entirely. She wanted to go to college and explore other passions. Emma wanted a normal life again. In the end, however, she couldn’t stand the thought of someone else playing Hermione. She made a deal with the studio: she would film the last three movies if they gave her time off to go to college and experience some normalcy. Of course they agreed.
In 2010, Emma was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood! She earned $15 million each for the last two Harry Potter movies. By her early twenties, she had already earned a $70 million fortune!8
In 2009, Emma headed to America to attend Brown University, an Ivy League school. She was nervous that students there would treat her like a movie star and that she’d have to deal with paparazzi. To her happy surprise, people treated her like any other freshman, and she made great friends who didn’t care that she was Hermione. She lived in a dorm, she went to parties, and she even wore her pajamas to class sometimes—just like any other college student. Emma finally had her normal life back. She graduated in 2014 with a degree in English literature.
Since she had to attend so many premiers and Hollywood events as a child, Emma developed an early interest in fashion. At fifteen, she became the youngest person to ever do a cover shoot for Teen Vogue. She made an effort to wear clothes by new, unknown British designers. “I thought, If people are going to write about what I’m wearing, then I would wear young British designers who need the publicity,” she says.7 At nineteen, she became the face of Burberry, a high-fashion British label. She also designed a teen clothing line for People Tree, a fair-trade company (they pay all their workers a living wage) that helps poor people in developing countries by teaching them work skills while also protecting the environment.
Believe it or not, the multitalented Emma is trained and certified to teach yoga and meditation. As part of her training, she did a meditation retreat where she couldn’t speak out loud for a week.
But Emma’s focus on fashion doesn’t mean she’s stopped making movies. In 2011, she starred in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Bling Ring the year after that. Her 2017 film, Beauty and the Beast, had the biggest opening weekend for a PG movie, Emma has many passions and talents, but doing these movies reminded her how much she loves acting and wants to keep doing it.
While filming The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Emma and her costars, Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller, formed a band called Octopus Jam, with Emma as lead singer.
Emma also devotes a big chunk of time to fighting for women’s rights and education for girls around the world. In 2014, she was chosen as a UN (United Nations) Women goodwill ambassador, helping promote global empowerment for women. That year, Emma delivered a speech at the UN to launch their new campaign, HeforShe, calling for men to stand up for gender equality. Emma also explained her belief that “feminism” means that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. Within hours of giving the speech, Emma received threats online, but her response was unwavering: “It made me so angry . . . If they were trying to put me off, it did the opposite.”9
As a UN ambassador, Emma travels the world speaking about gender equality in countries where women are oppressed. For this work, the Ms. Foundation for Women named Emma their Feminist Celebrity of 2014. And at age twenty-five, she made Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People” list. In 2016 Emma started a feminist book club on Goodreads called “Our Shared Shelf” (check it out!) to share ideas and spark discussion.
Emma certainly didn’t have a normal childhood, but when asked if she has any regrets about spending it on the Harry Potter set, she answered that she “wouldn’t swap it in a million years.”10 Who knows what her future holds? More movies for sure. But Emma is smart, talented, and passionate—she could do anything. One thing she will always do is keep pushing herself: “I have so much to learn, and I couldn’t be more excited about that.”11
If you truly pour your heart into what you believe in—even if it makes you vulnerable—amazing things can and will happen.
—EMMA WATSON
HOW WILL YOU ROCK THE WORLD?
I will rock the world as a realtor and make affordable housing more accessible. I also love cosmetology, so I will help the world by introducing more eco-friendly cosmetics.
MAYA TODD 
AGE 12