Emma Watson on ‘The Hardest Thing’ About the ‘Harry Potter’ Movies
The Harry Potter movies were nothing short of a global phenomenon. The eight films captivated audiences around the world and made billions of dollars. But a lot of hard work and dedication went into making the magical films. The cast and crew devoted an entire decade of their lives to making and promoting the films. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint (the three main leads) yielded their entire childhood to the films. The trio gave up all sense of normalcy in order to star in the flicks.
Emma Watson considered giving up her role as Hermione Granger
Watson, Grint, and Radcliffe have been candid about the fact that they struggled to deal with the intense fame that the Harry Potter movies brought them. In fact, both Grint and Watson considered quitting the franchise at one point or another. Of course, the challenges that they faced weren’t exclusive to off-camera life. Watson shared that she sometimes struggled while the cameras were rolling.
The ‘Little Women’ star recalls the hardest part of filming the eight ‘Harry Potter’ movies
Though each of the Harry Potter movies had their fair share of challenges, Watson cites the last two as the most difficult. Not only was she dealing with intense themes like torture and death, but she was also braving the elements. The Bling Ring actor maintained that she was always cold and wet while filming both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She even was reduced to tears while shooting the final two films.
Interestingly enough, it was something else that Watson named the toughest part of filming the Harry Potter movies. In an interview with JoBlo, the actor explained that keeping her performance fresh was the biggest challenge of the franchise. Because she spent 10 years of her life playing Hermione Granger, she sometimes found it challenging to keep things new, exciting, and dynamic. Fortunately, the pace of the final two films helped her find more nuance.
“That is definitely the hardest thing,” Watson shared about keeping things fresh. “The cool thing about this movie is that because we shot two back-to-back, there was this momentum that we picked up and there was this kind of chaos to flitting back and forth between two different movies, and we were trying to get so much done that we didn’t have any option than to be fast and be on top of it. The pace picked up a notch, which really helped us as actors, because when it’s that slow, it’s very hard to give a fresh performance. When you’ve sat in the trailer for three hours, it’s tough.”
Watson enjoyed having a bigger role in the last two ‘Harry Potter’ movies
Another thing that helped Watson was the increased role that she had in the final two Harry Potter movies. As the trio is on the run, Watson is in the overwhelming majority of scenes in the seventh film. This, Watson claimed, helped her breathe new life into Hermione.
“I just had such a bigger role,” Watson explained. “It gave me such a better chance to really develop it and get into it, and I just felt like I had so much more room to give it a bit more. I had some really challenging stuff to do, which gave me a chance to show what I can do, which was lovely as well.” Clearly, filming the Harry Potter movies came with its fair share of challenges. But Watson seemed to have fared pretty well.
