Emma Watson Talks Turning 30, Working With Meryl Streep, And Being Happily Single | British Vogue

hello Omar hi thank you for joining me for British folks have a little girl chat thanks for doing this with me we have met on a sort of activist circuit but this is a little bit more glamorous I want to start off with the question that I think we're all wondering which is why don't you follow me on Instagram babe I really know what you I was really I felt nervous for a second but now I am well you should say that is actually crazy I was looking at your Instagram just yesterday yeah and I was like Paris is really good at taking selfies I'm a trans woman so I know my angles yeah it's it's all about I've got like the one if you look they're all basically the same photo you're following Gloria Steinem wanna tell me about how you met her and oh my goodness she's the dream I did this speech for the UN this campaign that we launched called Hiva she and I had like a massive case of the imposter syndrome because suddenly I was like me coming coming out as this feminist was kind of concern I was like okay Wow to what do I anyway the impostor syndrome hit hit hard and I was kinda I need to go to some people who've been doing this for a while and talk to them and she went to the top oh yeah okay I think I'm fighting for his diner okay and it was just a really helpful conversation because she was just so loving and accepting in terms of kind of everyone is where they are on their learning journey as long as you're doing the work you are actively seeking and pursuing understanding and connection genuinely from a curious place then you're gonna be fine I know that you took a bit of flack for being a white feminist to start off with and which you know I I really admired your your reaction to that I'm very curious because you're somebody who's actually engaged with that criticism and what feels like a very meaningful way why was that so important to you and why do you think it's so difficult for people to examine their own privilege social media is a really interesting space and I'm always trying to figure out how to take care of myself healthcare reading comments that are intended to be nothing other than cruel and unkind is not good for my psyche on a daily basis does it gets how I oh my goodness yeah yeah I've had many days where I call them do they days I'm just like con just it's really hard yeah and um but what I wanted to say was I else I also got some useful critical feedback that I wouldn't have got I wouldn't have maybe heard if I hadn't been engaging in that way and engaging in that space and I saw the white feminism coming up again and again and I was like hey this is clearly something that I have to meaningfully engage with I I have to understand this better I want to understand it better and you know I have this ready as a friend of viewers as well I don't know fine and her book why I'm no longer talking to white people about race started a conversation just did yeah yeah in this country and it put it all in one place in one space in a really clearly defined narrative and exploration the journey really started when I went to university in the States when you study history you're given source a source be saucy compare the sources compare the validity of the sources etc and so like you kind of do those as it like exercises but to actually sit in another country and hear your history told differently yes so how you have been taught it yeah at home yeah and I remember sitting in my lecture hall and you know listening listening to my professor and genuinely turning around in the middle of my mic is anyone else having some kind of breakdown here because it felt so just it was the first time I had had a first-hand experience of of realizing oh my goodness history is genuinely yeah told from the perspective of it's told by and so I think really the biggest thing I took from Ronnie's book was the desperate need to reform our education system in the UK and the way that we tell the story of how we have been involved in foreign affairs in our relationship to slavery which we never talked about which we never talked about the wealth of this country was built on that we never talked about it and it's not okay it's just like deeply deeply deeply not okay I had really considered myself to be well-read and I have a university degree and I have the label of my university degree and it just suddenly it felt meaningless or anything like that but it felt like this needs critical analysis yes what I've learnt who I've read why I've been told to read it who's been included who hasn't whose voices are missing exactly and it it kind of set me off on a whole track of annelotte you know looking at everything I heard everything I'd learnt so it was a real I mean it was an awakening why do you care so much about these issues because I know that for me personally the reason that I became an activist if you want to call it is because my life was really really unbearable when I was at university and I felt that either had to change myself to conform you know as what was acceptable you know I can walk down the street and people perceive me as a woman but also I felt that it was very important to me to you know regardless of what I look like it needed society needed to be safe for people like me so it was actually a very selfish decision I I know that you've got a real heart and care about these things but you don't have to do them you know for your career do you you know that there are people who have successful acting careers that don't take on all of these projects and you devote so much time and energy to it like where does that come from I think I've always been this way and I don't know why without this part honestly it's got to the point it renders everything else that I do meaningless it just feels empty other I can't I feel uncomfortable taking up as much space of I'm taking up I'm not speaking about any of the stuff it just doesn't feel right in my life is so important to have meaning you want to feel like your life counted for something at the end of it right can we talk about the state of the world just Germany please please can we I mean I I'm an optimist at heart but I just essential yeah well you kind of have to hope that things are gonna get better but all the signs are pointing towards not very good you must be worried about that as I think we all are yeah about what your political persuasion is anybody actually happy with the state of war this country in particular but just general oh yeah what are you feeling the the biggest threats are there's a great quote I'm gonna I'm going to I'm gonna actually meet it to the wrong person I think but you know they say that when disaster strikes that's when artists get to work that's when we roll up our sleeves and we go okay how am I gonna tell everyone's stories so effectively that piece is possible or more war is impossible because everyone can see that everyone is the same and they can't be at war with each other more than ever I need to be around other artists that are being activists in their spaces I need to be connected to you know people that are sharing their like I didn't sleep last night either yeah yeah yeah so creating space and bringing people together and bringing groups of people together has your husband such a bomb for me in the last six months has helped me so much what's the thing that you've been most proud of in your life whether that could be a personal thing or it could be a professional thing what do you like I'm really glad I did that there's a number of different ways I think I've found to come through this and feel to certain degree I'll let other people be the judge but feel sane and feel normal and I'm the most proud of that because sometimes I look at it or when I go I was lucky to come out the other side of that because it could have been very different I felt a bit like I was in the matrix sometimes and I'm like dodging I'm seeing bullets kind of like go past like this like okay I seem to be I seem to be navigating it and sometimes you know like touch weird but sometimes I do feel just just some days I wake up and I just feel grateful and proud of that yeah good for you are we let's talk about the fact that you are going to turn 13 this was really interesting so I was like why does everyone make such a big fuss about turning 30 this is not a big deal cut to 29 I'm like oh my god I feel so stressed and anxious Wow and I realize it's because there are there is suddenly this bloody influx of subliminal messaging around if you if you do not have a if you have not built a home if you do not have a husband if you do not have a baby and you are turning 30 only I knew not is something like incredibly like secure stable place in your career you're still figuring things out there's just like this incredible amount of anxiety do you actually enjoy all of this but I know we're doing it here today yeah this is not a natural situation to be in is it for most for you you know this is your this is what you do but this is of course you know part of it that you can't escape that's another thing I've sat in therapy and felt really guilty about to be honest is is like why why me why somebody else would have enjoyed and wanted this aspect of it more than I did right and I struggle with I've wrestled a lot with the guilt around that dr. Esther I've been like I should be enjoying this more yeah I should be more excited and I'm actually really struggling right and but they didn't know what you were getting yourself into wow I was not a thing yeah I was nine years old and I got literally picked out of a lineup in my school gym that wasn't even an acting school and got the first part I ever auditioned for I mean it's like it's so bizarre another wildly what happened to me is there another Emma Watson that didn't go to that audition that didn't get picked out would you be very sliding door yeah like who who is ever Watson doesn't 19 that didn't I mean was it so long ago that you started on this journey that you can't even envisaged a person would be now yeah I mean it's really interesting Harry Potter when I was 9 years old so I mean and making yeah I don't even have that many memories from where I was before before I had the role it was I won this poetry recital competition I always loved poetry I always loved writing always loved performing in that way I think I would have done it another way oh yeah maybe wouldn't be him how are you possible I I did would have there's no doubt in my mind it would have been part of my life and I think part part of what's helped me find peace is there's been moments when everything just got so big I'm so kind of whoa where I almost had vertigo why on my own life and it's got so big I felt disconnected and part of I think my sense of peace within myself has been in remembering my identity as like I'm someone's daughter yeah like I am my mother's daughter I am my father's daughter I am I am a sister I I belong to a family I come from a place I have roots there's a whole really big existence and identity that I have actually that's really important and weighted and solid that has nothing to do actually with any of that and that's fantastic that you know that sense of self yeah well I haven't always well I think while we are connecting and and remembering and kind of being you know I've had to ask I'm like am I still your daughter you know I still bye it's because I it it has felt so weird sometimes it's got so big yeah yeah and how do you how do you get away from that how do you kick back and have fun I mean I did my yoga teacher training a couple of years ago and that was really fun and I made friends doing that and I love to dance do you ever wish you could just put on a party wig and just go down any old do you and just sneak out to the pump and just you know go to the pub but like sometimes concerts and bigger spaces like that okay kind of figure out a way that must be quite exciting Halloween is great for me Halloween is maybe one of my favorite night of the year yeah because I can you can be anybody it can be anybody but people must come up and recognize you and say things to you yeah but it's not quite on the same level you know I can get on a train you know and not be pestered but you can't do normal thing I could go meet a guy off tinder for a drink or something I want to bring it really heavy again but like I feel anxious walking down the street right I feel anxious yeah getting on a train I feel anxious being in public spaces because I never know I got tears of transwoman well that's what I was gonna say is it's it's it's different it's totally different and often times it's not my safety that's a risk but that feeling of I think that's you can't go incognito yeah constantly worried of people yeah yeah and that's a lot of that's a lot of anxiety to live with so like you're saying you can't imagine but I have just insane amounts of empathy for what it must be like to walk down the street and I hadn't thought about that actually I really haven't thoughts about that but it is that whole is it okay for me to walk out walk out the door today I met and I'm in contact with a six year old trans child that also really hit at home and differently in a in a really different way of resumes and there's a real people at the heart of these discussions yeah and like just being aware of just being so afraid for this child and so scared about what this child might go through our experience yeah in their life yeah and just feeling like oh my goodness I'm British and I don't want you to be in danger I don't want I just want like just want basic things for you yeah dad I'm nervous so you're not gonna get and that makes me really mad because there's so much more having spoken and having friends for trans like there's so many more important issues that are not being discussed where it's like right we're dealing with like life and death starts right I know what the answer this question would be but you know do you feel comfortable with me using you know female toilet oh my god of course I would does that depend on me having her surgery no what would you what would she say I don't want to dwell on this for too long but what would you say to those people who would have an issue sharing a public bathroom with me oh my goodness say that's another human being how can you I understand fearing what you don't know I understand kind of thing like I don't really understand about this and I've never met someone and but go and speak go like go and go learn go speak go yeah go look into the whites of someone's eyes this had this experience and tell me after you've done that that you do not see or feel their humanity or understand their story or that you felt like there's any part of you that feels that it's okay to make that person not feel included it's making people feel not included I think is it's just such a painful awful thing to do and it has such big effects I guess I'd ask them have you ever felt the UN included yeah have you ever felt yourself not welcome somewhere not invited if you thought like that yeah yeah I can see you're irrational yeah I have in what sit in what circumstances have you fell over um it must be quite lonely being at the level because I'm very good people around you but they can't fully empathize and I know that you'd be the first person to acknowledge that there's lots of great things that come out your lifestyle but it must be lonely it can be but again I do I do the exercise I'm doing here with you now with this other person and we've done it during this conversation which is people say to me I can't imagine and I go maybe not in that specific way but you can imagine in other ways yeah and it's the same for me it's the same for you it's the same for the whoever this imaginary person is that I'm speaking to you now which is to say you might not have experienced this and in this specific way but you will have experienced it in your life in some way and you will know how that made you feel and do you want to perpetuate that do you want to make somebody else feel that horrible horrible feeling inside yourself that someone telling you you're not welcome you don't belong you're not included yeah we don't want you here yeah I grew up feeling like that I got a feeling that I was ugly that I was perfect that was mentally ill that I wasn't you know that society wasn't wasn't about can i I've actually brought a book for you actually which is quite um is on topic T do you speak French not fluently but I do can you yeah reader it's the first book since Ronnie's book that really blew me away Wow and he's he's so young he's like 26 about say he's so young he's so young and he grew up in rural France and he's gay and he was bullied relentlessly and he had all sorts of problems at home and it's it's as much about class as it is about homophobia and it's just so powerful and actually weirdly it's it's got a lot of parallels with my own stories and I would like to give this you but we I can get you an English translation no I actually love that you're giving it to me in French well I loved it okay this is this is perfect Paris by the end of next year I want to be able to read every word of this book in French okay on the book Franks we haven't talked about you or your film yet yeah and we should do and we are all very excited about it obviously but did you read it the way man when you were growing up I'd watch the films but it was really cool reading Gracchus script because I have this theory I get me into trouble I have a theory that really I mean Louise I had a lot of sisters in real life but I think also she kind of put a little piece of herself into all of the sisters and I kind of think it was a it's a really clever way it's a really good literary device to explain that feminism there's not one way to be a feminist which we still seem to be struggling with and I'm not totally sure why but I've realized with Meg with Meg's character her way of being a feminist is making the choice because that's really for me anyway what feminism is about last choice is having choices hard choices that she wants to be a full-time mother and wife and she she loves her home and she loves creating space that in environments that are beautiful and homely and loving and Meg Meg's gift is that she she holds space beautifully poignant ly profoundly with so much love and there's this great conversation that I have with Joe which is that she's Joe's trying to convince Meg that she should run away on her wedding day and that you know come on we can go now like if we leave now we can still you don't have to marry this man you don't have to do this because - Joe yeah being married as a really a sort of prison sentence but but meg says you know I I love him and this is my choice really happy and this is what I want and just because my dreams are different from yours doesn't mean that unimportant I need stories please sometimes people ask me about other people yeah I've worked where then I'm like yeah three and I'm just so happy that when people ask me about Merrill I can actually say yeah good things like she she's the dream she's all the things you hope Merrill will be I mean she the twinkle in her eye the like kind of cheeky sense of humor so she is sure she is who she not everyone is know and and she really is what was really nice about working with Laura Diane and Merrill was that the way that the three of us knew each other way before we did Little Women was we met an activists bassist about times up you know a year and a half before we ever work together on the film so we had this kind of ally ship and this solidarity as activists that had been part of a certain movement before we ever worked together and so many different amazing women that you've worked with in your career Malala yeah yeah because she she cited use them as inspiration and I just thought your reach is so global I wonder what that meant yeah I mean is she she actually I was interviewing her when she told me that the reason she had wanted to identify with feminism was because of was because of my speech and I I teared up in the interview and I was like am I gonna be able to keep asking questions because it did really I was like if if Malala can be affected by what I've what I'm doing what I've said then that's that's kinda how I was meaningful as it gets really so that was really big um and then there's also you know like I spend time in silence every year I do ten days Society please tell me about that because I love and at the end of it there was this amazing there wasn't like the room was mostly people that were older than me and there was one other younger girl and she's like I live in an ashram in India full time but I follow you on Instagram Wow and she's like and I every time I see you doing what you're doing I just want you to know that there's a girl in an ashram in India who's rooting for you I she's like every time I see I'm just like I'm just there rooting for you and it's funny cuz I go back and forth on I have moments for a night I just wanted to leave my Instagram account I just don't I don't want to do social media I just went off I went out not before you follow me not if I follow you though Paris but you know yeah and but then I think about her I think about her yeah I'm like no that's meaningful it is meaningful or thought I've just felt really real to me that this stranger that I just sat with for ten days quietly was like no I from from my ashram on the other side of the globe I follow and I and I send you I send you good good vibes what do you wish people knew about you that you don't think that they do what would you like people to know about you I played a symbol I played someone that and I know this because she's a symbol for me so I understand how this happened I don't judge anyone that I meet that is kind of like but you're not but I'm not and I'm also not what weirdly my name has also become to mean which is that kind of the myth of how of that whole story and what all that means and even people that are really close to me sometimes can't let it go or just see just me yeah and sometimes I have to go no no I need exactly what you need like I'm just as human as you are I'm just as insecure as you are I struggle just as much as you struggle and I get it like I am dating yeah then there's an not one specific person but I'm going on they've got five or six on I am dating in the sense they're right I'm dating I'm dating you're out there I'm just wondering how how do you meet because obviously is it a trans woman it's quite complicated everything together how do you can't just a link man on tinder can't I can't surely they're coming dating apps are not on the cards for me yeah I'm very lucky in the sense that because I went to university and because I've kind of done these other things outside a film um my friends are really good setting me up yeah really good and and what's really nice as even things that even things that haven't worked out romantically some of my best friends are people I got set up on a date with yes well I yeah and that's I didn't think it was possible and it really is possible and it's actually great I never believed the whole I'm happy single spiel I was like this is real yeah this is totally interesting the stuff that we take back it took me a long time but I'm very happy I call it being self partnered right Joe I've got a really stupid question on here you don't have to answer it but if you've got an embarrassing story most embarrassing thing that's happened to you people don't don't ask you I mean I guess there's just been awkward stuff like making out with someone and then I on the telly behind us right I can hit like do I turn it off do I just ignore this do I is he thinking about this is it just me thinking about this maybe he doesn't know what the Harry potter-themed machine sounds like maybe it's just the actual thing that you've been at me you've been kissing a guy in the Harry Potter yeah I mean there were adverts that would come on TV time so if you have the TV on the background which happens but then I'm in this whole thing in my head and there's a big dialogue that goes on and there is Wow thank you only for you by the way well as somebody who grew up not having the voice and I didn't want this to be like a big you know suck you up interview but I just really admire I just really admire the way that you raise up other people's voices and and use your platform as a force for good I think it's really great and keep up the good work think you

Channel: British Vogue

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Id: cQynYGDpyiw

Length: 30min 0sec (1800 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019