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Emma Watson
Interview - Sunday Times Magazine
BY CAROLINE SCOTT

A Sunday Times Magazine Special

Emma Watson, 11, was already on her third Harry Potter book when she was visited at her school in Oxford. 'A few girls were chosen to audition and I thought it would be a giggle to try,' she says. 'Then I kept getting recalled and it became more serious. I couldn't imagine that they would choose me out of thousands of girls, but the closer it got, the more I wanted the part of Hermione Granger.' 'Emma had the ability to be forthright and still remain appealing, and that was the key,' says Lindsay-Stewart. 'She has to appear likable in spite of sometimes behaving in a rather unlikable way.'

Emma puts it more simply: 'Hermione sounds like me, behaves like me. She's self-assured, irritating, emotional and loyal. Playing her doesn't involve an awful lot of acting.' The final choice was down to Columbus and the producer, David Heyman. 'There has to be chemistry,' says Lindsay-Stewart, 'and that was obvious with Dan, Rupert and Emma from the moment they met. Some children look right but are so nervous that you know they won't survive on set with a hundred other people.' Once on set, the children formed a tight-knit group. Thrust out of ordinary lives into the glamorous yet often tedious world of film, it was inevitable that they would bond. They've had to get used to cramming an hour's maths into a lighting break, as if it were part of the timetable at Hogwarts.

Outside the world of Harry Potter, they maintain as normal a life as possible. Rupert goes home from filming and sees his friends. Emma says she still has friends who don't know she is Hermione. She is both starry and ambivalent about her impending fame. 'I've never turned down a request for an autograph, but it's scary knowing that the whole world knows my face.' She is hedging her bets when it comes to her future career. 'I haven't decided on anything yet, but I generally like things I'm good at.

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