Emma Watson British Actress From Paris

Early life

Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born on 15 April 1990 in Paris to two English lawyers, Chris Watson and Jacqueline Luesby. The family lived in Maisons-Laffitte until her parents separated when she was five. She then moved with her mother and younger brother to Oxfordshire, later settling in Oxford, and spent weekends with her father in London.

She attended the Dragon School until 2003 and afterwards Headington School. Outside lessons she studied acting, dancing and singing at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, and by the age of ten she had appeared in school and Stagecoach productions. Casting agents first noticed her through her theatre teacher. She had no screen experience, yet after a series of auditions she was cast in the first Harry Potter film.

After a gap year spent filming the last two Potter films, Watson enrolled at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and took a bachelor's degree in English literature in 2014. In the 2011 to 2012 academic year she was a visiting student at Worcester College, Oxford. She began a Master of Studies in creative writing at New College, Oxford, in 2023.

Career

Watson made her screen debut in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), playing Hermione Granger, a part she kept through all eight films until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 in 2011. Her first performance won a Young Artist Award, and she later received other prizes for the role, including Otto Awards from the German magazine Bravo.

Her first role outside the franchise was Pauline Fossil in the BBC television film Ballet Shoes, broadcast on Boxing Day 2007. In 2008 she voiced Princess Pea in the animated film The Tale of Despereaux. After the Potter series ended she appeared in My Week with Marilyn (2011) as the wardrobe assistant Lucy, and then played Sam in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), which drew favourable reviews. Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring (2013), in which she portrayed a fictionalised version of Alexis Neiers, and Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), where she was Ila, followed. She also took a small comic part in This Is the End (2013) and starred in the thrillers Colonia and Regression, both released in 2015.

In February 2016 she announced a year away from acting to concentrate on personal development and her advocacy. She returned as Belle in Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast (2017), which earned more than 1.2 billion dollars worldwide, and played Mae Holland in The Circle the same year. In 2019 she appeared as Meg March in Greta Gerwig's Little Women. Her most recent screen credit is the 2022 reunion special Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts.

Alongside acting, Watson has worked in fashion. She began modelling in 2005 with a Teen Vogue cover shoot and later fronted campaigns for Burberry and Lancôme. She also advised the fair-trade label People Tree on a clothing range. In 2020 she joined the board of directors of Kering, the group that owns Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, chairing its sustainability committee until 2023. In 2023 she and her brother Alex launched Renais, a gin made from recycled grape skins.

Public roles

In July 2014 Watson was named a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. That September she spoke at United Nations headquarters in New York to launch HeForShe, a campaign inviting men to join the push for gender equality. She visited Uruguay, Bangladesh, Zambia and Malawi in connection with girls' education and women's rights, and in 2016 started Our Shared Shelf, an online book club centred on feminist writing that stopped posting updates in January 2020.

She is a founding member of Time's Up UK, launched in 2018, and gave 1 million pounds to the organisation that February. In 2019 she joined a gender equality advisory group to the G7 convened by the French president, and helped launch a legal helpline for people facing sexual harassment at work.

Recognition

Watson won the Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film in 2002, the same year she received a Saturn Award nomination for best performance by a younger actor. She took three Teen Choice Awards in 2011 for the first part of Deathly Hallows. In 2014 she was named British Artist of the Year at the Britannia Awards and won Best British Style at the British Fashion Awards. Time magazine placed her among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2015, and she appeared on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2015 and 2016.