Emma Watson on taking acting break: 'I felt a bit caged'

MUMBAI: Actress Emma Watson is opening up about the reasons why she is taking an acting break.

Watson, who rose to fame starring in the Harry Potter franchise as Hermione Granger, said that she "wasn't very happy," reports 'Deadline'.

"I think I felt a bit caged," Watson told Financial Times in a recent interview.

"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's last film was Greta Gerwig's Little Women which was released in 2019 and co-starred alongside Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothe Chalamet, Bob Odenkirk and Meryl Streep, among others.

Over the years, Watson starred in films like The Circle, Beauty and the Beast and The Bling Ring. The star mentioned that she felt like she "didn't have a voice" which made her feel have a sense of frustration.

"I didn't have a say. And 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 added.

For now, Watson will continue to her break from acting but assures that she will come back sometime in the future.

"I'm happy to sit and wait for the next right thing," she said. "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?"

SOURCE: IANS