Lately, Emma Watson has been shaking things up with her tireless work in the name of feminism. The former child star has largely traded her acting career for her HeForShe campaign and her post as the U.N. Women Goodwill Ambassador. Talk about changing the world!
But her interest in feminism sprang from experiences she had while starring in the Harry Potter films, Watson recently explained in Interview magazine. In a conversation with actress and fellow feminist Geena Davis, Watson discussed how working on Harry Potter at such a young age prompted her to relate her role in the industry to bigger issues.
“When I did Harry Potter, the ratio was more often than not, at the very least, one-third female, two-thirds male. But when I looked at [Geena Davis’s] research and see things like 21 percent of filmmakers are women, only 31 percent of speaking roles in popular films are female—you start seeing it everywhere. It’s so much bigger.”
Watson also described how she was affected by a lack of strong women in the media growing up. “I’m always convinced that the reason that I didn’t take as many politics or history classes is because I just didn’t see any women. I didn’t think that when I was 13, 14 that that had anything to do with me. I just didn’t see women in my textbooks. I didn’t see many female politicians on TV.”
According to Watson, seeing “other women be fully and truly and authentically themselves, and express that, has given me permission [to do the same].”
And with that revelation, now she’s providing the same inspiration to the HP generation. Rock on, Hermione!