Emma Watson aka Hermione, geeky, perfect and Best Friend Forever of Harry Potter the infamous movie boy-wizard, has just shorn off her hair.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since I was 16,” she tells Life! in an interview at the swish Berkley Hotel in London.

“But I couldn’t because of the films. I couldn’t wear a wig. It wouldn’t look natural on someone my age.”

The homeschooled daughter of lawyers and current second-year student at Brown University, Rhode Island, had apparently walked into a New York salon alone, emerging from it two hours later minus 30cm of hair – and completely unrecognisable to the paparazzi.

“I was very calm,” she says.

Is this part of a whole new butch look?

“Butch?” she returns, bemused but slightly frowning.

“I think it’s rather gamine actually, rather feminine,” she says. “I’ve never felt sexier. I love it, this new hair.”
And this new me too, for indeed, life after Hermione has just began.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is scheduled to open worldwide on November 17 and in Singapore a day after. Part 2 of the adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s best-selling phenomenon will follow in July next year.

With all filming wrapped up last month, Watson is glad to have finally put the enterprise safely behind her.

Several years ago, rumours had been flying about that she was extremely reluctant to take part in the final sequel of the lengthy franchise about an enchanted school and its wizarding students. After all, the 20-year-old has spent half her life working on the films since the first movie was released in 2001.

But with an alleged US$20 million (S$26.9 million) per movie at stake, the decision was surely made clear.

“Having been with the film all this way, it made sense to continue to the end,” she says now. “It’s finished exactly the way I imagined for Hermione – with Ron, the kids, her causes, everything.”

HP7, Watson says, echoing co-star Daniel Radcliffe, is a “road movie”.

“It was good to get out of Hogwarts, run off in search of Voldemort in Scotland and bits of very beautiful English countryside,” she says. “But a lot of it was actually shot in a tent in the studio.”

As for growing into a middle-aged mother of two in the final scene of the entire series, she is surprisingly nonplussed.

“Well, we wore quite a few prosthetics and the make-up is always very good,” she says. “But I hear a lot of it will be CGI, so I’ll only be able to see for myself the same time as everyone else. It’s interesting to see how they made the children look like us too.”

The conversation so far has been very politically correct and guarded. But that is the vibe you get from her – not quite fully grown-up but still very much the sensible prefect of her own life – new haircut or no.

A year ago, the straight-A student had prevented press coverage until the last moment of her admission to one of America’s top Ivy League institutions at Brown, wanting to keep a quiet, “normal” profile instead.

“I think normality is underrated,” she says. “It took two weeks for everyone to get used to the idea of having an actress in class. But after that, everyone realised that I was just Emma, normal Emma.”

Life these days, she adds, is the unlikely bliss of squeezing four in a dormitory, “mulling over pizza on a Friday night.”

She has just completed the first year of “shopping for courses” and has not yet chosen to focus on a subject at university. “but I’m tempted towards doing something in history,” she says.

Has real life across the pond changed her in any way?

“Oh no, I’m still very much a Brit – people expect me to come back with an American accent but I haven’t,” she says.

“But it’s interesting you’ve pointed out that I’ve experienced three very different kinds of education – homeschooling, Hogwarts and now Brown. It’s made me look at the UK, at Europe, in a new way. You see things from the outside in. I guess everything you go through in life is a learning process.”

Fifteen minutes of your time with the precocious Watson are almost up. You are tempted to ask her about her fledgling relationship with indie rocker George Craig for whom she has appeared in a recent music video.

But those steely eyes staring straight back at you as you perch on the cusp of a forbidden private question, notwithstanding a watchful film executive babysitting silently in the corner, convince you otherwise.

Instead, you ask her about life outside Potter. This has so far included a short TV appearance in BBC Drama Ballet Shoes, plus a voiceover stint in the animated movie, The Tale of Despereaux (2008).

“Well, my immediate plans are to get through three more years of this course,” she says. “But if something interesting comes along during the summer holidays, a bit of theatre, maybe a good film, I’m open to the idea.”

Indeed. For rumours had been circulating that Watson’s new pixie hairdo – a la Audrey Hepburn or, more recently, another rising British ingénue, Carey Mulligan – have less to do with a lifestyle makeover than an audition for a role in a Hollywood remake of the late Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson’s hit series, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

The role has allegedly gone to newcomer Rooney Mara, but what might Watson care with her many fish to fry?

She talks about that other great love in her life: Fashion. She has recently started modelling for Burberry and is actively involved in promoting People Tree, another eco-clothing brand.

“Fashion is art,” she once told reporters.

Today, she is waxing lyrical over a jumper. “This thing I’m wearing, it’s ever so incredible, the most comfortable thing on earth,” she says, tugging at a baggy, cotton-knit top around her neck, just about exposing – the horror – a bra strap.

“Feel it, feel it,” she urges, as you tentatively grab at a patch of white fuzz.

“This is what I wear all the time in the dorm,” she adds. “This is me – and I’m still me, you know? Someone asked me if my new haircut means I was coming out, like, out. Was I a lesbian?”

“That was so funny. I just laughed out loud.”

But has her life really changed on behalf of her hair?

“It’s funny how everyone thinks of you differently now, and of course, you do feel different. The wardrobe is slightly different too, now that you mention it,” she says.