When the young Emma Watson was cast as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series at at the age of 9, she didn’t quite realize just how much of a the megastar she would become.
“I sort of lived in denial for as long as I possibly could,” she said. She'd tell herself that she’s only famous for two weeks after a Harry Potter film came out and then everyone would just forget who she is. She even took public transit up until the age of 18, but when it reached a point where every time she would take the bus everyone on it noticed, she decided to face the truth.
“The fact that I was on the bus would spread from one end to the other and it would start to get totally crazy,” she said during an interview with W Magazine.
Watson was a very serious girl from a young age, and she recalls how when shooting she would obsess over her lines.
“I loved learning my lines, I was completely obsessive, and I would do it over, and over, and over again,” she said. She also knew the boys’ lines and could recite them.
“In the first Harry Potter film, if you watch carefully in some scenes, you can see me mouthing Harry and Ron’s lines as well as my own,” she said.
Watson was careful not to screw up the precious opportunity as she had to do 8 auditions for her role, and the process of getting a call-back was especially nerve-racking.
“I would literally just sit in front of the telephone and wait to get a phone call,” she said. But the experience made her learn the lesson that when you’re waiting for something to happen it never will.
“The phone call always came when I was out of the house,” she said.
