Emma’s “New Day” in Vogue

Emma Watson opens up in the latest issue of Vogue and gives us a glimpse into her real life. She talks about university, Perks, her clothing lines, romance and growing up with Hermione. HP has given her wealth and fame that most can only dream about, but it has come at a cost. “I have had no control over my life,” she says. “I have lived in a complete bubble. And now I’m desperately trying to find my way through it.” With Emma’s drive and determination, I think she will do just fine.

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Emma Watson’s New Day

photographed by Mario Testino

It’s the pixie-cut hair and flawless skin that give her away. Emma Watson is dressed unobtrusively in a cotton flower-print French Connection dress and beige sandals, but she is unmistakable. Fans have accosted her five times in the past half hour alone. Today is the actress’s twenty-first birthday, and she is determined to spend it as she pleases—which means a leisurely mid-morning latte followed by a stroll through the Joan Miró exhibition at London’s Tate Modern.

Emma ignores the stares and continues to chat animatedly about Miró’s willingness to take risks with his art. An avid painter herself—“I love it and have a need to do it”—she can talk eloquently about every picture on the wall. Her favorite is The Farm, a painting once owned by Ernest Hemingway that brought the artist his first taste of success outside Spain. What she admires, Emma tells me, is that Miró was both a draftsman and a painter, unafraid to combine these talents to create something that was simultaneously surreal and hyperreal.

   

  

Her words could just as well apply to what is happening around us. The increasingly febrile atmosphere is, frankly, terrifying as word filters through that Hermione Granger, Emma’s alter ego (who will make her final appearance in this month’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2), is in the building. A raucous band of teenagers turns around and heads straight toward her. “It’s time to go,” she says, and we head swiftly for the nearest exit. Outside, a photographer in a tree starts snapping away until she is inside the car and driving away.

This is not an experience most people would ever wish to repeat, but Emma resumes her breathless discussion as though nothing untoward just happened. “I have to really enjoy the good things because it makes the bad things OK,” she explains. Learning how to put her life into some kind of perspective and carve her own meaning onto it has been the great challenge of the past two years.