Emma Watson

She took a ‘gap-year’ after school and applied to Columbia and Brown University. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she chose to keep her private life under wraps and is said to maintain close ties with her ‘Harry Potter’ co-stars; Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint.

She is a budding fashionista herself and has designed a range of clothes for underprivileged children that benefited UNICEF.

Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born to Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers, in Paris, France. She lived in the city till she was five years, but following the divorce of her parents; she shifted with her mother and younger brother to Oxfordshire.

From a very young age, she dreamt of becoming an actress and took up coaching classes at the Stagecoach Theatre Arts to pursue her dreams, while attending Dragon School, in Oxford.

By the age of 10, she had performed in a number of stage productions and plays. It was at the behest of her school teachers that she decided to audition for the role of Harry’s best friend, Hermione Granger.

She auditioned for the role eight times, beating all her seniors to bag the role. Interestingly, right from the audition, she won the heart of the author herself, J.K. Rowling.

She left Dragon School in 2003 and as a result of her busy filming schedules she was tutored for her GCSE exams for over 5 hours a day. She finally cleared her GCSE examinations the following year, earning two A’s and eight A*

She was finally chosen to reprise the role of the brainy, Hermione Granger for the Harry Potter franchise in 1999, which was her first professional breakthrough.

Her debut-screen performance in 2001, garnered the attention of critics and audiences from around the globe and avid fans soon related Watson to the character of ‘Hermione Granger’ in the book.

The following year, she appeared in the second series of the Harry Potter franchise; ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’, for which, her screen-presence and her acting skills were commended.

2004 kicked-off, with her playing a major role in ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’, the third installment in the series. Although the third film proved to be the lowest-earning film in the whole franchise, her performance as a more mature Hermione Granger earned her a number of awards and the attention of critics.

From 2004 to 2009 , she enjoyed continued success with the Harry Potter films in the fourth, fifth and the sixth installments; viz., ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’.

Emma Watson’s is celebrated for her role as Harry’s nit-picky friend, Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film franchise. She has appeared in all the eight installments, which have been deemed as some of ‘the highest-grossing films of all time’. She has been glorified for her brilliant screen-presence, blunt dialogue-delivery and her connection with her character in the series. The ‘Harry Potter’ franchise alone has won her a number of accolades and she currently has a net-worth of $10 million from her films.