Emma Watson ‘Watched Hours of The Kardashians’; Here’s Why

Emma Watson has always had a ton in common with her most famous character, Hermione Granger. Like the bright witch, Watson is intelligent, well-read, and always does her homework. Playing Hermione also has made Watson a household name and in-demand actor. This means that she rarely has to audition for roles. Instead, they are offered to her. However, there are some roles that Watson had to fight for. Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring was certainly one of those roles.

Emma Watson was a fan of director Sofia Coppola before working with her

Watson admits that she was a fan of Coppola’s work long before she worked with the director. Eventually, she had the opportunity to meet Coppola and learned that she was working on The Bling Ring. Immediately, the Harry Potter alum was interested in portraying Nicki in the film. However, she was hardly the only actor who was interested in the part. Thus, Watson went all out to make her audition stand out from the crowd.

How the ‘Harry Potter’ alum prepared for her role in ‘The Bling Ring’

To prep for her audition, Watson really got into the character of Nicki. She even utilized a ton of bronzer and self-tan to look the part. But even after she won the part, the Noah actor continued to invest tons of time and energy into making the character the best it could be. One element that Watson was keen on nailing was her character’s accent, which was a world away from her own. While developing the accent, she watched tons of reality TV, namely Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which followed the Kardashian-Jenner family.

“I watched hours of The Kardashians, and The Simple Life, and The Hills, and then I worked with a dialect coach, too,” Watson shared with NPR. “That was part of what was so fun for me — not just the accent, but also the way of speaking is so different. It’s much more nasal and much more pronounced.”

Watching The Kardashians helped Watson nail the Calabasas accent

Watson’s hard work certainly seemed to pay off. In the aforementioned interview, Coppola shared that she was blown away by Watson’s commitment to nailing Nicki’s voice. “I was so impressed that Emma didn’t just do a California accent; that she got really specific with the Calabasas accent,” Coppola explained. “All us Californians were really just blown away.”

Of course, watching reality TV and working with a vocal coach wasn’t the only way Watson prepared for her role in The Bling Ring. She also kept journals that she wrote from Nicki’s point of view. She even created profiles on the Internet for her character. This helped her get into the mindset of the character she was playing, loosely based on a real person.

Watson made a Tumblr page for her character, Nicki

“Sofia really encourages improvisation, so that meant I also had to think like the character,” Watson stated. “That’s what the journaling was about, not just memorizing the lines; think like Nicki. I actually did a blog as Nicki, with a Tumblr page. It had a pink leopard skin background and tons of shoes.”

Clearly, Watson did everything she could to ensure that her performance in The Bling Ring was her best. We’re sure her loyal fans are interested in seeing what character she portrays next.