page_title: Emma Watson
section_title: 2012–present
hierarchical_section_title: Emma Watson / Career / 2012–present
caption_attribution_description: English: Emma Watson at the Cannes Film Festival 2013.
context_page_description: Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson is an English actress, model, and activist. Born in Paris and brought up in Oxfordshire, Watson attended the Dragon School and trained as an actress at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts. As a child, she rose to prominence with her first professional acting role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series, having acted only in school plays previously.
  Watson also appeared in the 2007 television adaptation of the novel Ballet Shoes and lent her voice to The Tale of Despereaux. After the last Harry Potter film, she took on starring and supporting roles in My Week with Marilyn, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Bling Ring, made an appearance as an exaggerated version of herself in This Is the End, and played the title character's adopted daughter in Noah. She went on to star as Belle in the musical romantic fantasy Beauty and the Beast and Meg March in the coming-of-age film Little Women, the latter of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Her other film roles include Regression, Colonia, and The Circle.
context_section_description: In May 2010, Watson was reported to be in talks to star in Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, based on the 1999 novel of the same name. Filming began in summer of 2011, and the film was released in September 2012. Watson starred as Sam, a high school senior who befriends a fellow student called Charlie (Logan Lerman), and helps him through his freshman year. The film opened to favourable reviews; David Sexton of the London Evening Standard opined that Watson's performance was "plausible and touching".
  In The Bling Ring (2013), Watson starred as Nicki. The film is based on the real-life Bling Ring robberies, with Watson playing a fictionalised version of Alexis Neiers, a television personality who was one of seven teenagers involved in the robberies. While the film mostly received mixed reviews, critics gave almost unanimous praise for Watson's performance. Watson also had a supporting role in the apocalyptic comedy This Is the End (2013), in which she, Seth Rogen, James Franco and many others played "exaggerated versions of themselves" and Watson memorably dropped the "f-bomb". She said she could not pass up the opportunity to make her first comedy and "work with some of the best comedians ... in the world right now".
  In June 2012, Watson was confirmed for the role as Ila in Darren Aronofsky's Noah, which began filming the following month, and was released in March 2014. In March 2013, it was reported that Watson was in negotiations to star as the title character in a live-action Disney adaptation of Cinderella. Kenneth Branagh was attached to direct the adaptation, while Cate Blanchett had reportedly agreed to play the evil stepmother. Watson was offered the role, but turned it down because she did not connect with the character. The role ultimately went to Lily James. In October 2013, Watson was chosen as the Woman of the Year by British GQ. That same month, she was one of two British actors to land atop a readers' poll of the sexiest movie stars of 2013, beating Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Lawrence for the actresses' title in an online poll of more than 50,000 film fans. Benedict Cumberbatch took the men's vote.
  Watson joined Judi Dench, Robert Downey Jr., Mike Leigh, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Mark Ruffalo as recipients of the 2014 Britannia Awards, presented on 30 October in Los Angeles. Watson was awarded British Artist of the Year and she dedicated the prize to Millie, her pet hamster who died as Watson was filming Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Watson starred in two 2015 releases, the thriller films Colonia, opposite Daniel Brühl and Michael Nyqvist; and Regression by Alejandro Amenábar, alongside Ethan Hawke and her Harry Potter co-star David Thewlis. Both received generally negative reviews. She also appeared in an episode of The Vicar of Dibley, in which she played Reverend Iris. In February 2016, Watson announced she was taking a year-long break from acting. She planned to spend the time on her "personal development" and her women's rights work.
  Watson starred as Belle in the 2017 live-action Disney adaptation of Beauty and the Beast directed by Bill Condon, and starring opposite Dan Stevens as the Beast. The film earned over $1.2 billion at the box office and emerged as the second highest-grossing film of 2017, behind only Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and the 14th highest-grossing film of all time. Her reported fee was $3 million upfront with profit participation, bringing her total salary up to $15 million. The film garnered positive reviews; Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times thought her performance was "all pluck and spunk and sass and smarts and fierce independence as Belle". Later that year, she starred opposite Tom Hanks in the film adaptation of Dave Eggers' novel The Circle, playing Mae Holland, a young tech worker who takes a job at a powerful Internet corporation, only to find herself in a perilous situation concerning privacy, surveillance and freedom.
  In 2019, Watson starred as Meg March in Greta Gerwig's Academy Award-nominated adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's nov
caption: Watson at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival
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