“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,” Emma Watson told The Financial Times

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Emma Watson is explaining why she took a break from her Hollywood career.

Watson, who turned 33 in April, recently opened up about her time away from acting in an interview with The Financial Times alongside her brother Alex and father Chris. As the family members spoke about Alex’s new gin brand Renais, the Harry Potter alum shared that she “wasn’t very happy” with her film career around the time her last film, 2019’s Little Women, released in theaters.

“I wasn’t very happy, if I’m being honest,” Watson told the outlet. “I think I felt a bit caged. 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,” she added.

The actress went on to explain that she felt she 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.”

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“And I started to realize that I only wanted to stand in front of things where if someone was going to give me flak about it,” she added. “I could say, in a way that didn’t make me hate myself, ‘Yes, I screwed up, it was my decision, I should have done better.’ “

Watson notably made her directorial debut in 2022 with a short film she created for a Prada advertising campaign, a new path in her career that she told The Financial Times she previously thought “seemed unattainable.” After that experience, she revealed to the outlet that she has been asked to direct an upcoming music video for an artist whom she declined to name in the piece.

“I don’t think I had any confidence in that. I know it seems weird,” she told the outlet of her first foray into working behind the camera. “I mean, I grew up on a film set.”

The Financial Times reported in its story that Watson intends to return to movies to act in a yet-to-be-announced film that hopes to begin production in early 2024. In the meantime, she plans to begin studying for a master’s degree in creative writing at Oxford University in September, the outlet reported.

“Yes, absolutely,” she said, when asked if she will act again — before the outlet confirmed her upcoming role. “But I’m happy to sit and wait for the next right thing. I love what I do. It’s finding a way to do it where I don’t have to fracture myself into different faces and people.”

“And I just don’t want to switch into robot mode any more,” she added. “Does that make sense?”