“The fame thing had finally hit home in a big way. I think I was scared.”
Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have revealed they almost dropped out of the Harry Potter franchise as they struggled to cope with fame.
Their roles as Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley in the hugely successful Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 2001 propelled the actors into global stardom at a very young age.
The two opened up about dealing with child stardom in The Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special.
“I can see that, at times, I was lonely,” Emma said. The fame thing had finally hit home in a big way. I think I was scared.”
Emma said that it was during the filming of the Order of the Phoenix, when she was just 16, that things became really became overwhelming.
“I don’t know if you ever felt like it got to a tipping point where you were like, ‘This is kind of forever now.'”
Director David Yates was made aware about Emma wanting to back out of her role as Hermione at the time.
In the end, Emma changed her mind as she couldn’t bare to say goodbye to her co-stars and felt the support from fans: “The fans genuinely wanted you to succeed, and we all genuinely have each other’s backs. How great is that?”
“I also had sort of similar feelings to Emma,” Rupert said. “Contemplating what life would be like if I called it a day.
“We never really spoke about it. I guess we were just going through it at our own pace, we were kind of in the moment at the time.
“It just didn’t really occur to us that we were all probably kind of having similar feelings.”
Daniel Radcliffe added that is was something they “never talked about it on the film” because they were just kids.
‘As a 14-year-old boy, I was never going to turn around to another 14-year-old and be like, “Hey, how’re you doing? Is everything ok?”‘ he said.
Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special premieres on Sky Max and NOW TV at 8pm on New Year’s Day.
