In an interview for the Sunday Times Emma talks about handling fame, privacy and trying to be normal.

“After Harry Potter, all that mattered was university. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be an actress,” she says. Her agent didn’t send her any scripts during her first year. “For a while it was amazing, as the American press afforded me so much privacy.” However, she couldn’t escape her fame. “On the first day, I walked into the canteen and everyone went completely silent and turned around to look at me.” It’s not a memory she relishes. “I had to say to myself, ‘It’s OK, you can do this.’ You just have to take a deep breath and gather your courage. I have moments where I walk into a bar and it will take me making a joke to put people at ease, to realise I am just a girl.”

Her parents divorced when she was five, but they still live in Oxford, and Watson is the eldest of her seven half- and step-siblings. “I feel so strongly tethered to England. The people who have known me longest are here.” She pauses, frowning. “The time I remember before I was famous was here too.” The way she refers to these two sections of her life, schoolgirl and global star, reminds me of the way people talk when they have experienced trauma, seeing their lives separated into pre- and post-event. “They are two different parts of my life,” she says carefully. “The time before I was famous is important as it formed who I am, and my closest friends, who I completely trust, are from then. They ground me, which is something I purposely cultivate.”

She’s on Twitter, but is probably slightly disappointing to her 12.4m followers, as there are no selfies or snaps of homemade cakes, even though she enjoys cooking. “Raspberry and amaretto cake is my favourite, but I also like banana choc-chip bread and egg tortilla. Cooking helps me to relax, and I think people close to you appreciate a home-cooked meal,” she adds coyly, although it’s about as close as she’ll get to revealing anything about her newest relationship, with Matt Janney, rugby hunk and Oxford’s most eligible bachelor. “I can’t comment on it, I’m sorry,” she says, suddenly jumping up and hastily bundling her things back into her bag, which has exploded across the sofa beside her. “I’m trying to keep my private life sacred, although I don’t want to lock myself up and never go out. So I guard it, because I don’t date people who are famous, and I don’t think it’s fair that, all of a sudden, intimate details of their personal life are public as a direct result of me. I find that so uncomfortable, and I wish there was a way I could protect those people, but it’s not in my control.”

Emma Watson is the cover feature for the April issue of Elle US. Scans of the magazine are now out and include new images from the photoshoot by Carter Smith. For the full article get your copy on March 25.

We posted these photos from the shoot before, but now in higher quality, thanks to @ninadobrevstuff.

Emma Watson will be the cover feature for the next issue of Elle US. A preview of the cover and several photos and quotes from the article have been released. The April issue hits newsstands March 25.

Emma Watson on the importance of having a life outside of her acting career: “I remember reading this thing that Elizabeth Taylor wrote. She had her first kiss in character. On a movie set. It really struck me. I don’t know how or why, but I had this sense that if I wasn’t really careful, that could be me: that my first kiss could be in somebody else’s clothes. And my experiences could all belong to someone else.”

On Noah, Darren Aronofsky’s $125 million dollar blockbuster, and what it was like playing Noah’s adopted daughter, Ila: “It’s Shakespearean, what happens to this family when they’re put in this confined space for 40 days and 40 nights. It’s the end of the world—how these different human beings are dealing with the impact of that. Are humans good? Are we bad? All of these themes are epic.”

Darren Aronofsky on Emma’s steely nerve while filming Noah: “We started off with one of Emma’s hardest scenes. We shot in Iceland on a beach with an extremely difficult weather situation. The force of the wind—we could barely hear the actors. The sun kept coming in and out. We had to wait for the right light, then, Go, go, go! Then, Wait, wait, wait! She was able to block out all those ridiculous external forces and just focus on the emotion at hand.”

Emma Watson on coming of age in the public eye: “There are all these actresses who have emerged in the last year or two, and they get to emerge as this complete human being. And I’m so jealous!”

Look behind the scenes for Emma Watson’s Wonderland magazine photoshoot.

The complete Wonderland interview with JK Rowling is now online. Emma Watson and Rowling discuss script writing for the upcoming “Fantastic Beasts” film, a theatre project, and of course the Hermione/Ron/Harry relationship that has caused such a stir.

Jo Rowling wrote Harry Potter, the best-selling book series in history, yet she still manages to be funny, kind, warm and real. She spends masses of her time supporting charities such as Comic Relief, Multiple Sclerosis Research through the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic and her own children’s charity Lumos… More recently she wrote novels The Casual Vacancy and The Cuckoo’s Calling (a crime novel under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith).

I wanted to ask you about the script that you are writing for Warner Bros. for Fantastic Beasts…

Warner Bros. came to me ages ago and said they wanted to do something with Fantastic Beasts. I could see the potential in it. I knew something about Newt [Scamander, the fictional author of Fantastic Beasts] having written a little something for Comic Relief. I had imagined a little bit of back story for him…

So when Warner Bros. came to me and said they wanted to make a film out of the book I had this simultaneous feeling of “it has a lot of potential,” and another feeling of slight panic that “I know some things about Newt and I don’t want you to ruin that for me!” because I knew who he was. So then I went away and sort of dwelt on what I knew about Newt, not intending to write a script but just trying to collect my thoughts so that I could at least give them the backstory I’d imagined, so that their vision was true to what I knew.

Then I really did have one of those moments that always make you phenomenally excited as a writer; but also that you know is going to end up being a ton of work. I thought, “Oh my God, a whole plot’s just descended on me!” But I wanted to do it as I was really excited about it. I wasn’t really thinking about writing the script myself, I thought, you know, I’ll give them this plot and then – fatally – I sat down and thought “I just wonder what it would look like…” and wrote a rough draft in twelve days!

Ahhhhh!

It wasn’t a great draft but it did show the shape of how it might look. So that is how it all started.

Wow, Warner Bros. must have been so excited.

I think they were kind of stunned. I didn’t tell them I had written it in twelve days. I’ve never written a script. It truly wasn’t that I thought I’d be good at it, I just wanted to get the outline of the story down, and that’s obviously given me a lot to work with going forward.

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Emma Watson was interviewed by long time friend Derek Blasberg for the cover feature for the latest issue of Wonderland magazine. A preview of the interview is online. Emma is the guest-editor for the February issue and interviewed Sofia Coppola, Lorde, JK Rowling, Darren Aronofsky, Douglas Booth, Ezra Miller, Guillermo del Toro and more. The issue hits stands on Friday or may be ordered online.

Photos from the article and text below

‘THE BLOOM OF THE WALLFLOWER’ BY DEREK BLASBERG

DEREK BLASBERG: My mother is the first person to say I always wanted a little brother or sister. I was the youngest in my entire family, and I always felt like it was a disservice to humanity that there wasn’t someone after me onto whom I could dispel my pearls of wisdom. So, when Emma Watson — then a smiley, sweet, super smart teenager — and I became buddies, I felt like my childhood prayers had been answered. There was only one striking difference: Emma, wise beyond her years, already knew more than I did about just about everything and didn’t need any such advice. Emma is one of those rare breeds of people who have an intuition, a good head on their shoulders, a quick judgment. I can’t be certain that, as her adopted big bro, she’s learned any of that from me, but I will say she’s taught me a thing or two. She is concise, put together, organised, forthright and reliable. (Which are not the sorts of adjectives that apply to most child actors.) Back when I’d visit her on the Harry Potter sets, her dressing areas would be tidy(ish) and her well worn and bookmarked books would be stacked everywhere. She navigated the pressures of filming the world’s most successful cinema franchise with elegance and grace, and she didn’t forget to do the little things, like send funny postcards from vacations and fruit baskets at the holidays. After Potter, I watched her grow into a beautiful young woman who is navigating a career that’s entirely her own. It’s been an interesting transition: As she herself says, she felt she was an adult even when she was in the body a little girl waving a magic wand. Now, it’s as though she has caught up with herself. In the film Perks of Being a Wallflower, she charmingly captured the end of an American innocence. In the upcoming Noah, she tackles the role of a biblical daughter-in-law in an epic adventure. Behold: Emma, a thoroughly modern woman.

DEREK BLASBERG: Where are you right now and what are you doing?

EMMA WATSON: Right now I’m on holiday. I’m stood on the balcony of my hotel room and I’m scratching my feet because I’ve been eaten alive by mosquitos. I look like I have a disease. I’m told I have sweet blood.

D: Well, I’m freezing in New York, so you won’t get much mosquito sympathy from me.

E: Well, I miss New York. I loved living there.
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