Emma Watson Stayed in Her Apartment for Weeks After Filming the Emotionally Exhausting ‘Noah’
Emma Watson once teamed up with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky for his feature project Noah. But at the end of filming the movie, Watson needed a long break after how grueling it was.
Emma Watson was emotionally exhausted after ‘Noah’
Watson has added a variety of movies to her name since her Harry Potter days. In 2014, she included another film to her diverse filmography by starring in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah. The movie was Aronofsky’s original take on the famous biblical story Noah’s Ark. Initially, Watson couldn’t believe Aronofsky would tackle a story like Noah given his track record.
“Darren does these very dark, very intense, very gritty, very real films,” she once said in an interview with CS Monitor. “And then Noah is kind of – you see this guy with the long beard and there’s the animals … You can’t really picture it.”
While filming, the project turned out to be a taxing undertaking for Watson at certain points. This included a moment where the actor had gotten ill on set, and was told to use that illness for the movie. So it’s no wonder why Watson wasn’t in a rush to work again immediately after Noah.
“I was so physically and emotionally exhausted by just the process of making the film,” she said in a 2014 interview with E-News (via Mirror). “I just didn’t leave my apartment for a few weeks, walked around in my pajamas for a few days in a row. I just needed some time to sort of put myself back together a bit.”
How ‘Harry Potter’ helped Emma Watson film ‘Noah’
Watson’s experience with Harry Potter helped the actor through the grueling filmmaking process for Noah. In a resurfaced interview with The Washington Post, Watson recalled being concerned when Aronofsky told her what filming Noah would be like.
“I remember being on set and Darren was saying, ‘Okay, the water is going to be cold, we’re probably going to be here for a full day, try and conserve your energy between takes, like keep warm and make sure you eat properly. This is going to be physically very demanding,'” Watson said.
But her concerns relaxed a bit when she was reminded of the difficulties that came with doing Harry Potter.
“For a minute I felt very intimidated, and then there’s something about having done those Harry Potter films and they were very physical. We did a lot of stuff in Scotland. It was freezing cold, filming at four in the morning, working crazy hours,” she said. “It’s kind of comforting in a way to know that in some senses, nothing will be as hard as that again, and I’m pretty prepared for most things people can throw at me, whether it be animals, water, stunts, CGI, whatever it is.”
What attracted Emma Watson to ‘Noah’
Aronofsky was one of the reasons Watson was so eager to tackle Noah in her post-Harry Potter career. She considered herself a huge fan of the director, who would hire her alongside actors she couldn’t wait to collaborate with.
“I was a huge fan of Darren’s films. I loved Requiem for a Dream. The Fountain is one of my favorite movies of all time, The Wrestler, Black Swan. So, you know, even before you read the script, you’re intrigued because his work speaks for itself, really,” she said. “And then having read the script, I loved my role. She’s got such a huge heart. She’s very wise, very relatable, and then you hear about the cast, it’s like Russell Crowe and Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jennifer Connelly and Ray Winstone.”
