The actress fears that at "any moment, someone’s going to find out I’m a total fraud"
The path from child star to famous adult is a difficult one to tread as so many have found out.
But Emma Watson seems to be navigating it pretty darn well.
Rising to fame in the Harry Potter movies, she was eleven-years-old when the first was released in 2001 and had turned 21 by the time the last of the eight films in the blockbuster franchise hit cinemas in 2011.
The model and actress has been carving out a name for herself away from the world of Potter starring in smaller films, such as My Week with Marilyn (2011) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012).
Now she's about to be seen on the big screen playing a fame-obsessed thief in Sofia Coppola's upcoming movie The Bling Ring, which showed at this month's Cannes Film Festival and will hit UK cinemas July 5.
Emma's also been filming with Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky on his upcoming biblical epic Noah.
All in all, a pretty impressive post-Potter resume.
However, Emma admits, like many young people making their first steps towards success in their chosen career path, sometimes it's hard for her to match her achievements with her self-image, as she told teen website Rookie.
"It’s called the impostor syndrome. It’s almost like the better I do, the more my feeling of inadequacy actually increases, because I’m just going, any moment, someone’s going to find out I’m a total fraud, and that I don’t deserve any of what I’ve achieved," the 23-year-old confessed.
"I can’t possibly live up to what everyone thinks I am and what everyone’s expectations of me are," she continued.
"It’s weird—sometimes [success] can be incredibly validating, but sometimes it can be incredibly unnerving and throw your balance off a bit, because you’re trying to reconcile how you feel about yourself with how the rest of the world perceives you."
Emma's spell at Hogwarts doesn't help matters, either: "...there’s a definition of me out there that feels kind of stuck in the moment when it was formed. I was 15 or 16 then, and I’m now 23. I’m not complaining, because people really have given me permission to evolve and have been very supportive of my work outside of Harry Potter. So I don’t feel too suffocated in that sense. But sometimes I’ve felt a little constrained by that idea of who I’m meant to be. Every article that’s published about me has some reference to Hogwarts or Hermione or magic or “What would Harry and Ron say?
But I just can’t allow myself to get frustrated by that, because I’m really proud to have been part of Harry Potter and proud of the work that I did on those movies. And it’s understandable—you can’t expect people to adjust their expectations overnight."
Well, we think Harry and Ron would be very proud of you Ems.
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