Emma Watson Once Shared Turning to Philanthropy Helped Her Deal With Fame
Emma Watson is known for using the celebrity she achieved through the Harry Potter franchise for charitable endeavors.
Apart from just wanting to help others, Watson shared her philanthropy helped her feel better about her fame.
Emma Watson once felt that her fame was getting to the point of no return
Watson had been in the spotlight ever since her casting as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, and her spotlight’s only gotten bigger since then. But Watson’s growing fame came with a few unwanted cons the young actor found herself dealing with. The attention of fame, and having to maintain an image in the public eye, eventually got to the actor.
“I’d walk down the red carpet and go into the bathroom,” she once told Vanity Fair. “I had on so much makeup and these big, fluffy, full-on dresses. I’d put my hands on the sink and look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Who is this?’ I didn’t connect with the person who was looking back at me, and that was a very unsettling feeling.”
In 2009, when Watson enrolled in Brown University, she began to seriously consider leaving Hollywood altogether. If only because her fame had gotten to the point where it seemed it was never going away.
“I sensed if this was something I was ever going to step away from it was now or never,” she said of her acting break.
Emma Watson once shared that her philanthropy helped her deal with her fame
Apart from being a successful actor, Watson has also managed to use her celebrity to help influence the world. She’s used her stardom to donate to several organizations of various causes. According to The Things, she’s helped raise funds for organizations aimed at natural disasters, poverty, equal rights, and more.
The Bling Ring star has also been an avid advocate for women’s rights and gender equality. She’d been wanting to express her advocacy for a long time, and found the opportunity to do so after graduating from Brown University.
“I have been waiting do this for years,” Watson once said in an interview with Elle. “When I left university [she studied English Literature at Brown University, graduating in May this year], I felt there was something lacking. I knew I wanted to keep acting, but I wanted something else.”
Other than being a genuine passion of hers, her acts of philanthropy helped curb some of the less desirable parts of fame.
“Fame is not something I have always felt comfortable with, I have really grappled with it emotionally. And, in a funny way, doing this is my way of making sense of the fame, of using it. I have found a way to channel it towards something else, which makes it so much more manageable for me. And this is something I really believe in. I could talk about it for hours,” she added.
Emma Watson once revealed what she would do if she didn’t have to deal with her fame
In her younger years, the Beauty and the Beast actor shared that she was a big fan of going to concerts. Doing so made Watson feel especially liberated.
“I have been to a lot of music concerts recently. I try and go every week. That’s my favorite thing to do. Listening to live music and getting to dance and be in a crowd are things I really like. I love dancing; you can always find me on the dance floor,” she once told Savior Flair.
In an interview with the Times, Watson shared she’d take her concert-going a step further if she could temporarily avoid her fame.
“I would go and stand in the middle of a mosh pit at a rock concert, because I usually can’t get away with that,” she said.
