Emma Watson has opened up about her decision of taking a pause from acting in 2019, revealing that it stemmed from a painful realization about the industry after the conclusion of the Harry Potter film franchise.
In an interview on the Jay Shetty Podcast, the actress explained that she entered new projects expecting the same sense of family she had grown accustomed to on the Harry Potter sets.
"I was coming to those sets with an expectation that I had developed on Harry Potter, which was that the people I worked with were going to be my family, and that we were going to be lifelong friends,” she recounted.
But outside of that beloved franchise, her experience was starkly different.
"I came to work looking for friendship. And that was a very painful experience for me, outside of Harry Potter and in Hollywood, like bone-breakingly painful, because most people don’t come to those environments looking for friendships," she explained. "They're looking for: 'This is my chance. This is my role. This is what I want out of it. I’m focused. This is my job. This is my career. Let's go.' And I was not of that mindset. And so, I found the rejection really painful."
When asked if competition or envy played a role to the rejection of her efforts to build friendships, Emma replied: "I think it was a [combination], it was a molotov cocktail of all of the above... I am just not thick-skinned. Maybe I was just not built for those kind of highly competitive environments. It broke me," she said.
Despite the struggles, Emma expressed pride in holding on to her values. "In a way I am proud it did because I guess that means I have something left to break. I have a heart left to break so it was a hard learning, but I think there's something that I am proud of in a way that there were certain things I couldn't withstand. I'd much rather keep my humanity," she highlighted.