New interview of Emma Watson with People/EW Network!

[Music] January of 2015 you made an announcement on your Facebook page it was I'm finally able to tell you I will be playing Belle in Disney's new live-action Beauty and the Beast it was such a big part of my growing up it almost feels surreal that I get to dance to be our guest and seeing something there my six-year-old self is on the ceiling heart bursting what changed between then and now what was the thing you didn't expect that you wish you'd known back then what the singing was that the hardest part to learn that it was all going to be okay hands down I think you know there were so many new things that I was taking on with the role I'd never done a musical before I'd never sung pop I mean I always sung but I never sung publicly before I never sung in funda many was professionally before and in front of anyone else I'd never horse ridden for a movie before I never done it for me before so like I kind of went into this boot camp for three months before we started shooting which was like singing four times a week dancing five times a week writing three times a week yeah that'll be two rounds combine them at the same time actually I don't thank God I think my brain would maybe explain you didn't sound intimidated you sound jubilant see you know my six year old self is uh not really feeling ya know I mean I think I feel so blessed to replayed one of my childhood heroes which was Hermione and then forget to play another one I feel like that's almost unique to an actress to get to do to get to do that so I was like wow this is um I just feel incredibly lucky to have the career that I'm having you know in my house we are big animation fans my wife and my kids love the Disney cartoons and you know even among people who grew up with them and are now adults in their older years never love with you know these Cinderella and Tokyo Beauty and the Beast is a much more recent one from the 90s but but it means so much like the geekdom around animation is as intense as Star Wars or Marvel DC Harry Potter Terry's in it yeah I feel like it unlocks for people something from their childhood something that feels so so deep inside them and like something that they've always known it has a level of familiarity that is just so intense and special when I talk about prep and whatever else is like in the build-up to the movie I really felt the pressure of that not just from me loving those dollars but knowing how much this character means just so to so many people what was it you didn't want to change about it what do you think is fundamental to the character of Belle that needs to say the same in both the animation and the live-action version well I love about Belle is that she is kind of if you look at her within so the category of those Disney characters she's kind of the rogue she's a she kind of like she takes a different course that was always what I loved about Belle like when I think about Belle I think about her singing Belle reprieves which is her sort of coming out of her house and singing this song which is just kind of like bursting out of her which is you know I know everyone around me can't understand why I don't want what everyone else thinks that I should want and which is being handed to me but I really just want something more I want something else like I don't this doesn't fit I don't fit she kind of like the Robert Frost poem she she takes the road less traveled and I I always really identified with that she's Bala's no sheep she's really on her own on her own path she's friends with sheep though she she is finishing but she's on her own thing and is this like defiance and I just got that energy that spirit was really worried identified within her that that's like her her sound of music scene to which was over the hill turning around and looking down at her town and it's also an expression of loneliness isn't it because she says that for once it would be grand to have someone I understand I have so much more than they have yeah and you get the sense of how isolated she is from everyone definitely and I think that's that in the end is where beasts and Belle find their common ground is because they both feel really lonely they both feel like outsiders in their own world bow is kind of trapped in her surroundings in her village and beast is trapped in this castle and there's this sort of strange mirroring there's a strange parallel where only when they're together just things kind of feel like they make sense and that's where they start to really fall in love yeah they make sense of one another for each other so the opposite of the question is that was what you wanted to keep the same about them what did you want to change like what did you want to bring to it to make it your own your version of Belle what's so beautiful about the story of the whole is this idea that Belle is able to see past these extraneous external superficial qualities of beasts she's able to see deeper and that's one of her like that's kind of one of her special powers is that she can see she can see behind his anger and frustration see the pain and vulnerability and security and her beauty is put in contrast to his Bettina and it's kind of what creates that that beautiful oscillation the following ad is being condensed for your viewing convenience I just wish the geico say the whole bun sorry yeah pay the money super easy oh man look like that Mike alright I'm not cleaning that up everybody has their own unique way to brighten their day which is why every Dunkin latte cappuccino and macchiato is carefully crafted with espresso and milk just the way you like it your coffee your Dunkin [Music] so in the original you don't get much for sense of who is Bell what does she do where does she come from how does she spend her time before she goes and meets Beast and so I wanted to create a bit more of a backstory for her we kind of get a little bit of a sense of why she doesn't fit in like shy three books and she's not desperately and I was Gaston but why is it that she's such an outsider why does she feel like she doesn't fit so much and I really wanted to get to the bottom of that we kind of made her this mad wacky inventor which was originally kind of like her father yeah was that with that role and it kind of became more about Belle chemic lines characters my father became much more of this slightly frightening nervous cautious but very sensible wise loving father so it's really fun to do to to do that and and add that on yeah crazy old Maurice great yo Marie so we had wood cutting machine yeah but now it's al Val's like creating this mad she essentially creates a prototype for the first washing machine so that instead of having to do the washing herself she can sit and read while her machine is taking care of it it's a barrel with like a thing that they don't get around as a whole thing donkey not washing machine yeah don't keep out washing machine that's also a really traumatic scene in the film because she doesn't just invent this thing that start while washing the clothes in the public square she's using her spare time to teach another small girl to read and then the villagers come and I don't want to give away too much but they destroy her machine there's like an anti intellectualism in this village which you get from her song yeah there must be more than provision yeah but you really get a sense of it in this movie they're hostile to her including change in her intelligence result women should read they don't think women should read and it's and it goes further than our which is arranging you picked up on that which is that they're deeply suspicious of intelligence and and anyone that you know is going on that and they don't like anything that foreign unknown that that might be beyond their realm of experience and so they really do they try it's breaking the washing machine as symbolic of not just them you know breaking from me she's spent hours working on but then really trying to break her spirit and kind of trying to kind of push her and mold her into a more acceptable version of herself I think that happens a lot with women and a lot with young girls where it's like oh that's nice but why don't we just kind of push you this way a little bit and like what do you do with expected oh yeah we prefer this aspect of your personality let's cultivate that area well that sort of thing that you're good at and let's just kind of like push that side a little bit I thought plot wise and also explained why she maybe wasn't so eager to get back to the village it was very important to me the bell try to meaningfully you know try to escape and only at the point when beast comes and saves her and she in turn saves han wolf from the walls and there's kind of this unspoken agreement of I'm not a prisoner anymore now I'm here on my own terms and I'm going to stay with you until you get well but there's something there's a dynamic that just the really shift what is it that make the beast worthy of being saved and redeemed and guessed on not worthy of it like what is she seeing question indeed I think she can see a beast that there's someone that is that has been fundamentally good that has been damaged and that kind of just needs rehabilitating almost and needs is just in need of love whereas Gaston is kind of the opposite end of the spectrum who is someone who has had nothing but love and admiration and easiness and because he never suffered it he doesn't have any empathy he doesn't have any empathy he's essentially an off so in that way I see Beeston Gaston us as opposites kind of opposite end of the spectrum they each have their entourage beast has his his household full of living clocks in candelabra and Gaston has his villagers who adore him they have paintings of him in the pub and the women are all floating over him he's so cruel to them yeah but Beast is loving in his gruff way that was so true again I think there's like an intentional cruelty with Gaston witches which is about building himself up by pushing others down whereas with whereas with Beast those kind of you can tell he's being unkind because she's so unkind to himself and he feels so terrible on the inside that good is his defense mechanism and it's a he doesn't see himself as being very worthy that kind of reflects how he interacts with everyone and everything I mean it's a very old story goes back in versions of Beauty and the Beast new American 2nd century and it's you know there's been some criticism of it that it's like a woman in an abusive relationship I can save him I don't really see it that way I presume you don't either but why what do you say to that type of concern that it suggests to girls stick with that abusive boyfriend maybe you can fix him why do you think that's not the case it's such a good question and it was something I really grappled with at the beginning the kind of Stockholm Syndrome question about this story so I did some reading about Stockholm Syndrome Stockholm Syndrome is where a prisoner will take on will kind of like take on the characteristics of and I'm fall in love with in this sort of a strange way they're capped or bell actively argues and disagrees with him constantly she has none of the characteristics of someone with similar wisdom Stockholm Syndrome because she keeps her independence she keeps her independence of mind and I also think that there is a very intentional switch wearing my mind Bell decides to stay she gives as good as she gets you know he bangs on the door she bangs back and she you know and she there's this defiance that you know you think I'm going to come and eat dinner with you and I'm your I'm your prisoner I mean like that I'm your cat absolutely not and you know it's only when they and I think I'd say other beautiful thing my love story is that they form a friendship first and it's and that gap in the middle where there is this genuine sharing in this real friendship the love builds out of that which in many ways I actually think is more meaningful than a lot of love stories where it was love at first sight and you're dealing with all of these kind of projections be Simbel begin their love story really irritating each other and really not liking each other very much so you build friendship slowly slowly slowly very slowly build to them falling in love that is a big problem with a lot of parents a little traditional traditionally written fairy tales is that you're late so the girls just going to give up her entire existence and everything that's been born war L to her for this guy that you know and that seems to be like just requiring theme which is fight whoa this is you know even though that I don't goes that way because he's still in love with fairy tales at the beginning of the story and finding her prince charming she does think about her prince charming but I think he is kind of the sense that I got from Belle so he's a bit of an afterthought she's much more about getting out there and traveling and reading and and I think as well like Prince Charming is someone that that comes along and understands understands her she's she's waiting for someone that makes her feel understood in some way now did you have any conversations with Pedro hara who voiced the character didn't know that me uh animated a it's interesting I've done a few movies where I play you know someone's play my character before all that you know my character exists in real life and I've always chosen I've always chosen not to and I think because in the act of creation you do you want to make sure that you're that you're bringing something individual and enriched all and a big part of it was wanting to stay faithful to thee to the original telling and I think I hope we really got the balance right of being like okay we're going to offer you some new stuff that you've never seen before but we're also going to give you the Hart home [Music] everybody has their own unique way to brighten their day which is why every Dunkin latte cappuccino and macchiato is carefully crafted with espresso and milk just the way you like it your coffee your Dunkin [Music] because this yourself on the other side of it though handing off Hermione Granger - no module Elena on Harry Potter in the cursed child yeah you've met her yeah when the conversations like about her mining now this is a character you both share ah it was so strange it's so emotional seeing Nomis performance in a way that I had not anticipated at all I went to play like really just like all no this will be great I'll be interested see and didn't even realize until she walked in the room I'm just spontaneous and burped and Cheers it was such an emotional moment for me I can't tell you but it made me it was such a relief because I think I'd played that character so intensely up until about point to know that Hermione was going to be okay I'm hopeful crazy would like to know that everything turned out alright and the wall everything the world was okay and that there was someone else carrying her on and carrying her forward and it was just such a relief it made me so happy because otherwise I don't know playing someone that I mean we get that little flash forward at the end of the last film but playing someone that kind of just gets stuck in time at 20 20 years old 19 years old was like no I like I wanted her to have a future when you think how many years of her life back to back to back and then yeah nothing so yes so it was sort of a relief you oh yeah a lot of early years it was relief and again it just feel so so lucky to play someone I sort of care about as much as I care about Hermione and it kind of in a way feels like does feel like an extension of the some of the essence of Hermione - when you talk to her do you feel like you have a mutual friend in her mind that you both know her yeah oh definitely I know what the other way thing is that nomal is a complete stranger but then I felt like I'd known it was really I can't honey like there was just an instant like intimacy connection oh we're totally on the same you know yeah it's crazy so obviously Belle loves books her thing she's a bookworm you are too you have our shared shelf yeah yeah the book club what what do you really get the moment like would occupying we're actually really never Chyna monologues by Eve Ensler and even such Britain a ton of great books actually so I had already seen the play before so I'm kind of delving into a few a few of her other ones as well I remember my mum do you need to see it why I'm still pretty young and I was horrified by the whole thing I was like you know because it just it's such a stigmatized topic and Eve just just boldly and bravely kind of just like just just just take the pickaxe to all of the to all of the walls to all it everything and so you end up if you bring it up as a topic and I'm having amazing conversations with people people know you for he pre-shave United Nations Solidarity movement bringing men into it feminism in supporting their friends and sisters and mothers and what's the latest with that program what what can you tell us about where that is and your involvement with it yeah I think the other thing that was really important for me about that movement with men understanding that it was also not just them helping their sisters other friends but kind of in a way helping or saving themselves in order to make themselves more full and more human and more whole and you know cherishing what we consider to be often considered to be feminine qualities instead of kind of sweeping them under a rug or or trying to pretend that they don't exist or or just generally devaluing them what I would really love to focus on is there's a lot of missing data in that we have about women and girls and there's a lot of these gaps that I'd love to try and fill and and get some more information on because when you can when you can show the data on something it makes thing visible and you know it's very difficult to treat a problem that you think just don't have a good color problem gosh everything from sexual violence to FGM to literacy rates to everything really often because listen don't measure a lot of things that happen within what we consider to be the private sphere so this year I really want to focus on on on statistics and information and data and data collection what do you think it's like the primary blind spot that guys have about this movement about feminism about doing the right thing just what is the relevance the word is really difficult because it seems to inherently suggest a preferential treatment of the feminine over the masculine because it has the feminine in the word and I think that's a real oversight and a misunderstanding rather than just basic fairness rather than just gender it just a cross just gender equality across the board this isn't girls are better than boys always better than girls this is just everyone deserves a fair chance at whatever it is I think also because a lot of prejudice and certainly misogyny is so normalized it almost is like it's right under people's noses so when you raise it there's kind of like a well that's dealt with that women women what the vote ages ago like this is nothing and and then when you start to kind of unravel it for people they're oh I didn't think about that or I didn't think about this and if I were to say it was a feminist it would be a personal attack on you as a man as opposed to a you know a patriarchal system or you know something much larger than an individual person I think all sort of men think that they can't be feminists that's a big misunderstanding some of the best feminists I know and then why do you think they can't really care like that omit not masculine ah yeah that it's not masculine if you're feminist that only women can be feminists because it's about again it comes fight down from misunderstanding over the word they have the feather okay yeah so I can't touch that I like to joke about the man box which is like you can only be a man if you fulfill these certain qualities and you stay within this this square of like you're in your man box and you're safe in the man box and something about for some men about going near feminism is you know step out of the man box if they know it is so fragile time away definitely I mean you know and I really sense that and also no one likes to feel they feel there's blame attached to that word and I think that's very difficult [Music] everybody has their own unique way to brighten their day which is why every Dunkin latte cappuccino and macchiato is carefully crafted with espresso and milk just the way you like it your coffee your Dunkin negative in pop culture that makes guys so resistant to women as like superhero characters you know I cover the Star Wars films as well and it's not the majority of the fandom at all but there is a certain subset that doesn't like that the last two Star Wars movies the two new ones both star women both of focuses on women as the main character you see this sometimes with like the female Ghostbusters movie like you're ruining my childhood by casting women in these parts why is that they don't accept women in these roles when when women have has been accepting guys in these roles for a long time and love Star Wars and Luke Skywalker even though he was a boy they weren't well yeah why are women able to accept it then guys or not well it's a manga it's something that they're not used to and they don't like that anything that deviates from the norm is is difficult to accept I think with if you've been used to watching characters that look like sound like think like you and then you see someone up on the screen that you go well that's the girl she doesn't look like me I want it to look like me so that I can project myself onto the character whereas women are great at doing that anyway we see whoever in screen and we recognize the human qualities in the man that we relate to and there's not such a gap but for some reason there's some kind of barrier there where they're like I don't want to relate to a girl often and I feel like you know the superheroes that if I asked a young boy what superhero to look soft they looks up to I feel a lot fewer would say a female one would ever use an example of a female like widow they wouldn't done standing up then in Reverse which is a shame because I feel like we need to live in a culture that values and respects and looks up to an idolized as women as much as men so I think that's starting to slowly change but it is something I feel like it does actively need to be address you hear people talk about you know obviously Carrie Fisher just passed away and women will talk about how important that character was yeah Leia was a touchstone for me I have a seven-year-old daughter and Ray is her touch I like and she loves Princess Leia too but but Ray is yeah you feel like Hermione is on that spectrum to that yes you can see I guess little girls now but also people who were in their twenties who grew up with your films that they connected with her mighty she was smart and she wasn't ashamed of that he wasn't too concerned about winning over the boys yay Morrison being herself except for LG had Polyjuice potion I said yes yes 100% but I feel like you know Hermione was that perfect example of turning on its head this initial prejudice that she gets which is that you're bossy you're this you're that and the hermione finds a way to wield her intelligence and become the really the leader in this in this group of of two other boys and that's kind of the role that she assumes harry is much more Harry is much more intuitive Ron is just along for the ride Hermione is is the one with the plant you know she's the one with the plan she she's in control and I think somehow that gave other women permission to feel that they were allowed to take up space and they were allowed they were allowed to do that and what's so fundamental lead beautiful about Hermione is that is her loyalty to to that group of exact group of friends in a way she she's believed glue that keeps keeps that trio together so her role and it's fundamental and and the boys know it and they and they really treat her with that with as if they know that yeah did you face that growing up did you have people telling you to do as we talked about with Belle to stay a certain way focus on certain things what type of obstacles were thrown in your path the amount of positive feedback I would get from from looking pretty and like putting on a nice dress and smiling nicely and doing all of that the amount of like affirmation and validation that would come with me spending time doing that versus studying for months and reading something interesting and being passionate about something and talking about it I mean that would Darley get a side-glance but like there's so much if you showed up on a red carpet looking beautiful you get a lot of attention yeah what if you were a creature talked about the young woman when it just felt really this is really depressing like I have I put so much of myself into whatever this thing is and ultimately all anyone seems to care about is this other thing that's not just me I know I'm in a very unusual and unique sort of circumstances but I have lots of other female friends who'll be like I gave a presentation it was 20 minutes long and someone just said oh like why you wearing that wig pantsuit no like that's what you took away from 20 minutes of what I just said you know it's like it's really hard so I I think that I think that's a tough one I think that's a reader you had a choice of you at the college and and you had a choice then to continue acting or pursue something else you majored in English Lit right what made you decide that acting was then going to become the main event and not just something you used to do Park sipping a Wallflower really really yeah it's so funny because I I went to college and I was genuinely kind of like well I'm going to go study and then I'll all kind of like I'll see what happens and then Steve sent me the script for park sitting a Wallflower and I went and I sat down with him and it just we ignited there so like did you read the book before you were no I hadn't so I read the book and it just gave me this weird compulsion I was like I have to tell this story you know I oh my god if I don't do this nothing else makes sense like I don't want to spend my time doing anything other than making sure that this movie gets made let's go to Pittsburgh my mom's in a bedbug I must get funding for this movie you know and it's like and it was really strange because I just didn't know cutting out hairy pasta whether I was going to feel that way about anything else for a long time you know I had lost performing and I had loved acting but really a big part of the passion for me was that I would just loved those stories and I wanted to be part of that world I loved that who that that character was and it wasn't so much for me about the idea of being an actress it was the idea of like I just want to be part of this and perks and working of Steve and feeling that I had something else to give an offer with what really Italy did that for me do you write are you interested in writing I do write I do write but I write I think when I write my best I'm writing about something that I need a so angry or so passionate about that ecologist comes out for me writing is like an overflow writing is like oh my go have all the stuff I need to get it I need to get it out of me somehow and and I put all down on paper it's therapy and it's like trying to work things out in my own mind and trying to understand it's trying to understand better what's going on is the following ad is being condensed for your viewing convenience I just wish the Geico what took is go along I know it's a ton of money on car insurance and what I'm talking about guy goes will give you 24/7 access to life changes it's been a woman in this business who has been inspiring to you who helped you along we talked about obstacles and people not valuing what you have to offer but is there been another woman who said here's how you clear those for me I think my big like aha moment or my big feeling of like wow there's like this whole cavalry that are coming to my support and women that I can call and try to make sense of things as more when I started when I became a part of the feminist movement and it was meeting people like Gloria Steinem and Sheryl Sandberg and bell hooks and you know any denzler and and Kayla Moran it's it's it's really the women whose books I started reading and then was fortunate enough to meet and speak to who made me feel that something like that sort of circumstances I had been taking very personally were in fact not personal at all but actually part of a systematic and and much larger much larger and bigger thing than than myself do you think things are getting better on that front is the arc toward improvement or do you feel like we're backsliding taking the longer larger view we are always we are always slowly moving towards progress but it's but it does feel as though we take one step forward we go back a bit we make progress there's a push back there's always a push back when in one anything comes under pressure when anything is difficult one of the first things to go or one of the first things that tends to be attacked when people are is women's rights is it's going through productive rights women's Liberty is one of the first things that people try to curtail it's an easy way to try and feel that things are being better controlled if women are are kept nicely and neatly in their in their place there's a lot of talk in this business about female directors and their women are editors they're writers and producers but there are very few female directors overall why do you think that is oh we're like we're not even on this we're not even on the scale we're like I think we're less than five less than five percent I don't know because you look at people like Kathryn Bigelow and you look at ABC Bernie and you're like you know these are really wonderful oh so these are explosive movies that they direct that's a big big diversity problem murder has to be addressed it really does are they being kept out do you think or is it I think partly else they're not because women are present in these other fields in filmmaking it's a double prong effect which is that because we don't because there are fewer role models because we see fewer women doing it I think fewer women are able to see themselves doing it have the confidence to see that they could do it think they can do it so it's partly internal and then and then I think it's also external those there's just that there's just a blanket level of prejudice about women's capacities in that role and just a lack of confidence of just like I'm going to give you that check for X million dollars to go and make this moving they just there's a there's a gap there that doesn't seem to be able to be bridged I don't know if it's a trust you know I don't know what it is but there's like some psychological hang-up among the people of the power to greenlight these things yeah is that shot to a young yeah and I think also those a genre ideas like well this is the movie about building's exploding and fights and superheroes so a woman can't direct that this has to have a man directing it because it's about explosions and fights and stuff so only a guy can do that it's like you know there's just kind of a there's a way that thing have been done for a very long time and you know you almost need to like open up new neural pathways and people's mind you need to expand people's vision you need to get people out of comfortable habits and patterns in order to to see new possibilities I want to ask you about your next project the circle makes ponsoldt it's based on a book by Dave Eggers this is a technology and its role in our lives how we are sort of constantly surveilled I mean we are today we serve a lowly tweet about where we are right about on Facebook about where we are but this takes it to another level what what does it have to say about life in 2017 I think that's what's so fun about this movie is that this is not a dystopian future that's set in you know 2050 or something this could be basically tomorrow I mean this is kind of an uncomfortably close film about where if we aren't careful we could very easily go in that technology is advancing us and giving us so much empowering us in so many amazing ways you know it's also handing over potentially huge amounts of information and information is is power I think even more than money in a way Tom Hanks plays a sort of Steve Jobs type yeah that's kind of incredibly likable genius big brother big brother figure who you know is kind of he has an amazing way of explaining things that's but that doesn't make it feel like your civil liberties of being of being taken out of your out of your hands he's kind of perfect for the role because he's so charming as so much as this stuff is it's shiny and exciting and you turn on your phone and you get this big dopamine hit it's really addictive do you find social media to be empowering or do you find it depressing and equal have an equal part sorry depressing and terrifying and equal parts empowering and thrilling I think that's the key really is bearing in mind the kind of a really draw a superconscious line between what is public and what is private and that has kind of helped me maintain a son degree of sanity because having people weighed in and give an opinion on absolutely everything about me we're just destroying me as a human being I would not be able to I would I would just be a shell of a human like people are criticizing who you're who you're dating or yeah I mean cuz no I mean no something should are inevitable in which I've got used to but censoring yourself and watching yourself and keep and also I noticed some

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Length: 38min 37sec (2317 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2017