- Emma Watson and Rupert Grint said they both considered quitting “Harry Potter.”
- The pair said the fame of the film franchise took a toll on their lives.
- “The fame thing had finally hit home in a big way,” Watson said.
The actors Emma Watson and Rupert Grint said they both considered quitting their roles in the “Harry Potter” film franchise during its eight-film run because of the pressure childhood stardom put on their lives.
Watson and Grint — who played Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley in all eight “Potter” films — discussed their time acting in the franchise during HBO Max‘s wizarding-world reunion show “Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts.”
The one-off reunion special was commissioned to mark the 20th anniversary of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” the first film in the “Potter” franchise. At one point during the show, Grint recalled a time during the production of the films when Watson brought up the possibility of her exit.
“You were considering pulling out. I’ve never really spoken to you about that,” Rupert said, according to a clip seen by ET Canada.
Watson replied: “Yeah. I think I was scared. 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.'”
HBO Max.
Grint later said that he also had moments “all the way through” his time as Ron Weasley in the “Harry Potter” films when he would be “contemplating what life would be like if I called it a day.”
Speaking about his anxieties from the time, Daniel Radcliffe, who played the titular role, said: “We never really spoke about it. I guess we were just 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 probably kind of having similar feelings.”
“The fame thing had finally hit home in a big way,” Watson added.
Later during the reunion, David Yates, who directed the final four “Potter” films, said that when he was drafted into the franchise, one thing David Heyman, the series’ producer, “and the studio spoke to me about was, ‘Emma is not sure she wants to come back to do another Potter.'”
Warner Bros.
The British actor Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the film series, also continued to highlight the pressure Emma Watson was subjected to as the lone female lead in the franchise.
“People definitely forget what she took on and how gracefully she did it,” he said. “Dan and Rupert, they had each other. I had my cronies, whereas Emma was not only younger, she was by herself.”
Watson concluded by saying that “no one had to convince” her to stay. The support of the franchise’s fans and her costars, she said, gave her the confidence to continue in her role.
“The fans genuinely wanted you to succeed, and we all genuinely have each other’s backs. How great is that?” she said.
“Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts” airs January 1 on HBO Max.