Emma Watson and the Deathly Hallows (Interview!)

Being impressed by her co-stars elevated performances:

Emma Watson: Oh, all the time, particularly in Part 2, there's a scene where Rupert's brother dies and the amazing thing about Rupert is that he's a very self-contained human being. It's very rare that you see him get emotional. The minute the camera rolls, he just becomes this other thing and he has so much, and I'm like, "Where does that come from?"

Anyway, there's a scene where he cries and I remember having to remind myself to keep acting because I just wanted to go, "You're amazing! That was amazing!" I don't know where he pulled it from, and I've had moments exactly the same with Dan where I've just been amazed, I mean particularly with a lot of the stunt work Dan's had to do in the last movie. He's fearless and he'll just launch himself off building, all this stuff, and I'm just gobsmacked that he just gives it everything, and it's really admirable, definitely.

How the direction and approach to character has evolved since Sorcerer's Stone:

Emma Watson: Well, it's interesting. I think working with different directors have signaled different...[trails off.]  Alfonso [Cuaron, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban] wasn't going to do any of the "kiddie directing" stuff. He was like, "Get up there and do it." He didn't have much patience for "Eyes wide, look terrified!" He wasn't going to do any of that, so he made us step up and then Mike Newell again, and then David Yates. It worked like that I think.

Her favorite co-star:

Emma Watson: I miss working with Emma Thompson, she was a real fave. She's lovely and very interesting and I got on really well with her.

Her best and worst Potter moments:

Emma Watson: I can tell you the worst right now. It was on movie #2 [Chamber of Secrets]. We get dropped by a dragon into the lake and I think it was January or February. The lake wasn't heated, and because we had to get changed as part of the next scene, we couldn't wear anything underneath. I was lucky. I had my bottom half with some thermals on, but I was like, "This must be a joke." It was so cold. I think Rupert thought at one point that his heart had stopped beating. I hate being cold more than anything, so that was my most memorable day. I was like, "I can't wait for this to be over!" We spent pretty much the whole of Part 2 soaking wet, and Leavesden - I'm sure it'll be beautifully redone when Warners invests all this money in it, but that day, it was not heated. Anyway, I'll stop complaining [laughs].

My favorite, my best moment... you know what? The first movie, even though it was ten years ago and I was really young, I just remember the wide-eyed excitement and awe I just came into Leavesden everyday, just to be so excited about what I was going to see next. Every time I walked onto a new set or someone new did something new, it was all just so overwhelmingly exciting. It just went by like this [snaps fingers] doing that movie. I have some really fond silly memories from that.

Jump to:

How Emma tackled the increasingly darkening material of Potter

The lowdown [aka minor spoilers] on our favorite scenes from Deathly Hallows