Translations:The Times of India
The Times of India
Hermione doesn’t want to be a witch forever
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Will Be Realased Globally In 8 Weeks
Chandlers Cross (Hertfordshire): Even as the Harry Potter industry is set to launch a publicity blitzkrieg ahead of the fourth film in the series, its blossoming female lead, Hermione Granger aka Emma Watson, tells The Times of India that her biggest ‘nightmare’ is being stereotyped as the world’s most famous witch.
Watson, 15, has spent four years playing Harry’s best witch-friend, the bookish Hermione with all the answers and spells one could possibly need. She admitted in an exclusive interview, “My biggest concern is that I’ll get stereotyped. It is my nightmare. I do want to do other things.”
Watson’s plea: see me as more than just J. K. Rowling’s magical creation of a pre-pubescent witch. The movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, directed by Mike Newell and produced by David Heyman, will be realised by Warner in eight weeks.
But she added, in what may be a plea for recognition as one of the architects of the Potter films’ run away success, that “I would hate to have another actress in the role (of Hermione). There is so much of me in her. Of course, Rowling wrote the character but I feel I had a part in creating her in films.”
Many believe Watson is emerging as the real star of the series. In a sign that she is likely to be the most outspoken of the three Potter lead actors, she challenged the stereotype of successful child stars becoming dysfunctional adult druggies.
In a brave – if foolhardy – manifesto for a child star with millions of pounds and matching numbers of fans worldwide, Watson declared people were unfairly obsessed with child actors like Macaulay Culkin of Home Alone fame.
She is careful not to get sucked into the stardom syndrome created by Potter industry.”I am very careful to separate the two – there is Hermione and there is Emma. There is a professional life and private life. I never mix the two.”
The real Hermione is an ordinary British teenagerwith the feet firmly on the ground. Watson says her “monay is safe in a bank where it will be until I’m 18. I still get my pocket money from my parents.”
Watson, who talks up the Yule Ball scene as one of the most remarkable, says she ‘loved’ the dance in the great hall of the brooming castle that is Hogwarts School for Wizards. “It was beautiful, with amazing costumes and yes, quite romantic,” she confides.
Watson denied she was involved with one of her male co-stars. “No, I have no boyfriend, I keep myself quite busy,” she insisted.