The star said she is “so glad” to have taken a step back from acting “because I have this feeling of having my own voice” again

Nearly 15 years after her whirlwind Harry Potter tenure came to an end, Emma Watson is continuing to live life away from the spotlight.

The actress, who spent her formative years as the child star who brought Hermione Granger to the big screen, now marks her 35th birthday on Tuesday, April 15.

Outside of Potter, Watson is known for movie roles in The Bling Ring, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Disney’s billion-dollar Beauty and the Beast, to name a few. However, she hasn’t acted since portraying Meg March in Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women.

As Watson told British Vogue in December 2023, she felt “so glad” to have taken a step back from acting “because I have this feeling of having my own voice and creative space and sovereignty in some way that I don’t think I did before — more autonomy.”

“I’m so glad that I allowed things to be messy for a minute and to really allow myself to not know [what’s next], because the knowing that I’ve come to, I wouldn’t trade that for anything,” she added at the time.

Part of the break since Little Women has included making her directorial debut with the Prada Paradoxe campaign in 2022, in which she also starred. Watson, who completed her Ivy League English literature degree from Brown University in 2014, also went back to her studies at Oxford University, plus she launched her own gin brand called Renais with her brother Alex.

During an April 2023 Financial Times interview, Watson got candid about her frustrations with headlining major movies. “I wasn’t very happy, if I’m being honest. I think I felt a bit caged,” she admitted.

She continued, “The thing I found really hard was that I had to go out and sell something that I really didn’t have very much control over. To stand in front of a film and have every journalist be able to say, ‘How does this align with your viewpoint?’ It was very difficult to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process.”

“I was held accountable in a way that I began to find really frustrating, because I didn’t have a voice, I didn’t have a say,” explained Watson.

Despite differences in viewpoints with the franchise’s divisive creator, Watson still looks fondly on her time starring in the blockbuster Harry Potter films. For the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special, she reunited with costars Daniel Radcliffe, now 35, and Rupert Grint, now 36, to reminisce. (Together, the trio led eight films released between 2001 and 2011.)

Ahead of that special, she wrote on Instagram in November 2021 that she was “proud not just of what we as a group contributed as actors to the franchise but also as the children that became young adults that walked that path.”

“I look at my fellow cast members now and I am just so proud of who everyone has become as people,” added Watson at the time. “I am proud we were kind to each other that we supported one another and that we held up something meaningful.”