Emma Watson Reveals She Almost Left Harry Potter Franchise

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Emma Watson has revealed that she almost left her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise amid struggles with stardom as a teenager.

Watson is set to appear in HBO Max’s upcoming Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special, in which director David Yates shared that the star almost pulled out.

According to People, which was given access to the reunion special prior to its Jan. 1 release, Watson recalled an old diary entry in which she mentioned feeling lonely.

“I think I was scared,” Watson said to her co-stars. “I don’t know if you ever felt like it got to a tipping point where you were like, ‘This is kind of forever now.'”

Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley, admitted that he felt similarly about his sudden fame, and even considering leaving his role as well.

“I had moments like that kind of all the way through,” he said. “I also had similar feelings to Emma kind of contemplating what life would be like if I called it a day, but we never really spoke about it. I guess we were just kind of going through it at our own pace. We were kind of in the moment at the time. It just didn’t really occur to us that we were all having similar feelings.”

“The fame thing had finally hit home in a big way,” Watson noted.

Co-star Tom Felton, who portrayed Draco Malfoy in the franchise, also praised how Watson handled the sudden fame, saying, “People definitely forget what she took on and how gracefully she did it.”

The comment prompted Daniel Radcliffe to highlight that because they were just 14-years-old at the time, they never discussed how their fame was impacting them.

“We never talked about it on the film because we were all just kids,” Radcliffe said. “As a 14-year-old boy, I was never going to turn around to another 14-year-old and be like, ‘Hey, how are you doing? Is everything okay?'”