Emma Watson refuses to go on Facebook. She has a page for professional matters that associates look after, but says she’d feel as though she was being ‘stripped bare’ if she networked on the social site for real.
‘It would be like wearing no clothes; stripped bare,’ Emma told me. ‘I have a professional Facebook page — but not a personal one.’
She’s flabbergasted at how omnipresent social media has become across all ages.
‘I see three-year-olds with iPhones and other gadgets and already they’re comparing themselves constantly with others about how many friends, clothes and places they share. It’s this super, hyped-up, intense version of childhood, which can’t be healthy,’ she said.
She noted that we’re all becoming celebrities in our own right. ‘We’re documenting and putting out there all aspects of our lives. You do something, then you tweet it. It’s not just celebrities who are dealing with this lack of anonymity and lack of privacy. Everyone is branding themselves now.’
We had met to discuss one of Emma’s new movies, The Bling Ring — Sofia Coppola’s awesome anthropological study of the LA spoilt brat. The film is about a gang of Californian teenagers who use the internet to help them break into the homes of the rich and dubious.
Emma gives an astute portrait of a bored, bland teen who’s able to express herself only through the froth of minor celebrity.
It’s a breakthrough performance for the actress, who gained prominence as Hermione in the Harry Potter movies.
The 23-year-old also nails the year’s best cameo so far, playing an axe-wielding public persona version of herself in the absurdly funny This Is The End, which opens here today.
She called the part, opposite the likes of Seth Rogen and James Franco, the equivalent of doing Saturday Night Live. ‘I laughed solidly for two days,’ she told me.
She credits the early Harry Potter pictures with helping to give her a sense of comic timing. ‘Hermione was so funny, and such a character. She was completely unaware of how precocious and bossy she was, though eventually the role become more serious.’
She added, somewhat wistfully: ‘I really miss making people laugh. I miss her. Hermione really started off as quite an eccentric girl, and the bits I really enjoyed were when she was unaware of herself.
‘She had that hilarious lack of perspective.’
Source
