The actress – who last starred in a flick in 2019 – explained why she turned down some incredible offers for movie roles

Even though we’d never forget her anyway, it’s been nearly six years since we have last seen Emma Watson doing her thing on the big screen – which is half a dozen too long, if you ask her fans.

The actress, 34, took a hiatus from Hollywood and turned down a string of roles, including live-action versions of Cinderella and La La Land, after starring as Meg March in Little Women back in 2019, so it’s been a hot minute.

Although her supporters backed her choice to take a break from film sets, they’ve struggled to cope while going without a dose of Watson’s acting prowess in a motion picture for such a long time.

She turned her focus onto activism instead, telling fans in 2020 that she was keen to ’embrace a role where she works to amplify more voices, to continue to learn from those with different experiences’.

Back in December last year, the Harry Potter star revealed that she felt ‘caged’ while looking back on her acting career, which prompted her to press pause on it.

The 34-year-old opened up about her decision to step away from the spotlight (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

“The thing I found really hard was that I had to go out and sell something that I really didn’t have very much control over,” she told the Financial Times.

“It was very difficult to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process.”

But she hasn’t just been sat idly by doing sod all for the last six years, as the star launched a wine-inspired gin, named Renais, with her brother Alex, as well as enrolling herself for a masters degree in creative writing at Oxford University.

On top of that, she tried her hand at directing and made her debut with a Prada Paradoxe fragrance commercial. Bosh.

However, her only screen credit of late was the unscripted Harry Potter reunion special in 2022, so there is an Emma Watson-shaped hole in a lot of peoples hearts.

But don’t worry, as she hasn’t hung up her acting hat for good just yet and has insisted she isn’t retired from Hollywood altogether – but is merely waiting for the right project.

During an interview with Vogue in December last year, Watson further explained her reasoning behind her hiatus.

We last saw Watson on screen in 2019’s Little Women (Sony Pictures)

After being asked about why she turned down huge opportunities in Hollywood, she told the publication: “Because I’m in a career that moves very quickly, the decision to take time to do these things felt like a very big decision.

“[Choosing] to go back and write and study and get behind the camera was terrifying for me because I’d never done it before. I had always been in front of the camera; I’d always been an actor.”

Watson then went on to reveal how she has benefited from taking a break.

She continued: “I’m just so glad that I did [step away from acting] because I have this feeling of having my own voice and creative space and sovereignty in some way that I don’t think I did before – more autonomy.

“I’m so glad that I allowed things to be messy for a minute and to really allow myself to not know [what’s next], because the knowing that I’ve come to, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

“I get a front row seat [with] some of the most successful, beautiful, incredible people in the world.

“And when you have that seat it becomes very, very clear that there is just absolutely no level of success that will make you in any way happy or content if you do not like who you are or enjoy what you’re doing when no one’s watching.”

It’s life advice that we could all benefit from – so kudos to Watson for sharing it.