Emma
Watson
Plays a Princess
by Lynn Barker
 Hermione
has grown up beautifully. Emma Watson started her role in the "Harry
Potter" films at age ten and is now a gorgeous young woman of eighteen.
While on a break from the "Harry" films, Emma chose to play
her first voice role in the animated film The Tale of Despereaux
based upon the popular book by Kate DiCamillo who also wrote "Because
of Winn-Dixie". Emma verbally enacts Princess Pea, a sad young woman
trapped in her gloomy castle after her mom the queen dies and the king
can't get over his grief.
Emma is now
taking a "gap year" before finishing her studies at college
and, last year, starred in a BBC drama called "Ballet Shoes"
playing an orphan girl trying to follow her personal dreams. One of Emma's
personal dreams is to one day sing and dance in a musical!
We sat down
with the well-loved star at a fancy beachside hotel in Santa Monica, California
recently. Emma looked quite grown up, classy and beautiful in sleek black
slacks and an ivory, one shoulder blouse with a drape neck. Her hair is
still long and wavy (OMG, remember the first "Potter" film?
Hermione's hair was like a giant furball that the cat tossed up! Those
days are long behind Emma). Let's talk "Despereaux", princess
and "Potter"....
AGW: Did you
have to audition for Pea and if so, what was your audition process like?
Emma: The
audition process was after I read the script. I was so desperate to play
the role and so excited and enthusiastic about it that they very kindly
gave me the role because I expressed so much interest in it. I loved it.
I really loved it.
AGW: What
did you like about your character in "Despereaux"?
Emma: She’s
basically your quite generic princess. She’s very beautiful and
she lives in the Land of Dor and everything’s great, but then she
loses her mother, and what makes it worse is that she also loses her father
because he goes into this state of grieving, and he just kind of locks
himself away from his people and his responsibilities and also from his
role as a father.
AGW: That's
sad.
 Emma:
Well, she’s pretty lonely, she’s pretty isolated, she’s
kind of literally locked up in this tower, and she can’t really
be part of the real world. So I thought it was interesting and felt very
sad for her. I thought the conversations she had with Despereaux were
really charming, and I really fell in love with the script and the book,
more than the character.
AGW: This
is a wonderful fairy tale. Both "Despereaux" and the Potter
films are "otherworldly". Can you talk about the similarities?
Emma: The
land of Dor feels quite magical so I guess it has that in common with
Harry Potter. And also The Tale of Despereaux is (also) based
on a book by Kate DiCamillo. Apart from that I think they’re very
different stories and have very different messages. Despereaux (a tiny,
brave mouse with very big ears) has such a strong character and identity
of its own.
AGW: Was this
voice actor thing a fun departure for you?
Emma: It was
so fun for me to work in a completely different medium, doing an animated
feature, I’d never done that before, and it was a lot of fun and
I’m massively proud of it.
AGW: You
have verbal exchanges with the little mouse voiced by Matthew Broderick.
Were you ever in the same recording studio working at the same time with
him?
Emma: Yes.
Matthew very kindly came in and did a couple of days with me.
AGW: Wasn't
it quite new for you recording a voice alone in a booth?
 Emma:
Yeah, it did take me a little bit of time. But when you work on a film
you do voice recording and if anything goes wrong, you do a couple days
of ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement). But a lot my performance is quite
physical in the film because I’ve been kidnapped and there’s
a rat in my room and whatever. It was hard trying to get all of that into
my voice; the emotion and the out of breath and the screaming. It was
fun.
AGW: But,
when Matthew wasn't there, wasn't it hard talking to just "nothing"?
Emma: I was
actually given a toy Despereaux, about this big, who I could speak to,
so I had kind of a substitute. So yeah, it was really interesting and
great fun.
AGW: Can
you tell us where you are in Harry Potter land right now?
Emma: Yes,
we begin filming the seventh one in February, and the sixth one will be
released in July of next year.
AGW: And the
seventh is going to be in two parts, and you’re going to work on
it for a year?
Emma: Yes,
but we're a long way off a film being released or a film being made, so
to be honest I don’t have a huge amount to talk about.
AGW: Okay
then, back to Despereaux. Can you talk about what you think the message
of the movie is?
Emma: There
are so many good ones. I've watched a lot of animated films and I love
animated films, so I feel like I can speak with a bit of knowledge. It
felt really different to anything that I’ve ever seen before, because
it felt like it wasn’t patronizing to children. The messages that
are in the film feel really profound and philosophical, and I loved the
ending; a serious ending about forgiveness.
AGW: Everyone
says they are sorry.
Emma: I thought
that was incredible that there is this kind of chain reaction that happens
where the king was hurt so he hurt his daughter, and Pea was hurting so
she hurt the servant girl, and hurt Roscuro (a rat played by Dustin Hoffman)
and the whole thing kind of just took off and just by one person saying
'sorry', and really meaning it, everything could kind of be restored,
It was amazing. And my other favorite message was that 'every girl is
a princess'. I thought that was such a beautiful message, that Mig (a
servant girl in the castle), in her father’s eyes, is a princess
and I just thought that was beautiful. I really love it, it works on lots
and lots of different levels. I don’t think it’s just a children’s
film, I think anyone can go and see it and get something from it.
 AGW:
Did you relate to the character of Pea in any way. You're English and
you live in a castle of course...(we're kidding on the castle thing).
Emma: Of course.
Everyone who’s British lives in castles in the middle of the countryside.
I never lost anyone close to me luckily so I can’t relate directly
to that experience and that’s probably the biggest one for Pea but
I guess everyone knows how it feels to feel lonely and isolated at times.
I think it’s part of being human and so I guess that.
AGW: Was it
difficult coming back a lot to record the voice?
Emma: The
Tale of Despereaux was made over quite a long period of time so I
was kind of brought in for a couple days here and there and then they’d
progress a bit further or something would change and then I’d come
and do another 3 or 4 days. So it was quite spread out and was a long
process so, in that sense, but it wasn’t like a very intense work
climate that made it difficult.
AGW: Was it
difficult switching from "magic" school girl to Princess?
Emma: No,
I don’t think so. I guess I have paranoid moments where I will hear
something in my own voice or I’ll go ‘Gosh, did I sound like
Hermione then?’ You know, I definitely have an awareness of it because
I’ve played (Hermione) for so long and she is so distinctive and
she is so much a part of me. So yes, I definitely have an awareness of
it but Pea was more gentle. I instantly felt a different person or character
playing her. I definitely had a sense that… It worked out okay.
I was worried about it but it worked out okay, I think. [She laughs]
Photos courtesy
of and copyright, Universal Pictures, 2008
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