E
mma Watson and I are sitting knee to knee on the
plushest sofa in the Royal Suite at The Savoy. Ten
minutes ago she greeted me with a sisterly hug, and
since then I’ve not been able to shake the feeling
that we’re at school and about to do the Christmas show
together. We ask for the room to be cleared so we can talk
freely, but there are still a dozen or more assistants, stylists
and crew hidden behind a wall of light, filming us on camera,
still and silent, like the antique bronze cupids posing on themantelpiece. But Emma seems OK with the set-up. I suppose
she’s been watched almost her entire life.
The story of how Watson became one of the most
recognisable women on the planet is folklore of sorts. She
was nine years old when she was picked out of a line-up of
would-be actors in her school gym to be in a film that would
change her life forever. “It’s so bizarre and otherworldly,
what happened to me,” she says in that instantly recognisable
preppy English accent, alluding, not for the first time in
our near-two-hour interview, to the trappings of growing
up and existing in the public eye.Twenty years later, and that child star is now one of the
world’s most bankable actors and recognised activists. In
recent years, Watson has used her fame and global following
to retool herself as a woman with the power to change
hearts and minds on issues from gender inequality to
sustainable fashion. She has been something of a pioneer
when it comes to championing dressing ethically, and is a
vocal advocate for Good On You – a campaign to inform
consumers about which labels sell ethically produced
clothes. She uses its app, which rates brands on
their production methods to check an outfit’s
suitability based on its environmental impact; the
Vogue team used it to source all the fashion for
this shoot in London’s Bushy Park.
In 2014, Watson was appointed a UN Women
Goodwill Ambassador, launching HeForShe, an
initiative to include men in the conversation about
gender equality. In light of the #metoo revelations,
last year she donated £1 million to help those
affected by sexual harassment, and last summer
launched a legal advice line in England and Wales
for the same cause. “I feel uncomfortable taking up
as much space as I’m taking up and not speaking
about [politics and social justice],” she says about
her activist work. “It just doesn’t feel right anymore.”
It’s the tail end of summer outside, and the
change of season appears to have put her in a
reflective, candid mood. She is wearing an
oversized black shirt with white stitching from
Alexander McQueen, her wavy chestnut hair fully
grown-out from the pixie crop she had in her
early twenties. Interviews aren’t something she
has ever professed to be comfortable doing, but
she is chatty and kind and prone to squeezing my
knee whenever things get emotional.
We first met last year at a meeting for activists,
where she was evidently keen to listen and learn
from campaigners from all walks of life, and she
asked me lots of questions about my experiences
as a trans woman and activist. I was impressed by
her empathy – after all, as an actor her job is to put
herself in other people’s shoes – and I admired the
time she spent trying to connect with stories that
may be very different to her own, and walked away
with an appreciation of how much thought and
care she puts into what she has to say. “I need to
be connected to, you know, people that are sharing
the ‘I didn’t sleep last night either’ conversation,”
she tells me. “And so creating space and bringing
groups of people together has been such a balm for
me in the last six months.”
Another balm has been acting. This Christmas,
Watson will take on the role of Margaret “Meg”
March in Little Women. Directed by previous Oscar nominee
Greta Gerwig, this adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s American
classic is millennial catnip, starring the likes of Saoirse Ronan,
Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep. The
project couldn’t be a better fit for Emma, combining, as it
does, many of her loves: literature (Watson’s intersectional
feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf, has 420,000 Instagram
followers), film and exploring the female experience.
As Meg, Watson plays the most traditional of the March
girls, who encourages her sisters to grow into “little women”.
It’s an intriguing choice of role, given that Meg is a character >17412-19-WellEW.indd 174 14/10/2019 10:11