Well, hello Emma Watson

It's a really unforgiving business for young actresses who get work on their looks and then get older. It helps to have one or two extra strings to your bow.

John Landis tells a great story about making Trading Places. It looks like an all-star cast in retrospect, but the studio didn't want any of the three lead actors. Eddie Murphy had, I think, filmed Beverly Hills Cop but it hadn't been released, and he was just known as a raunchy standup comic who'd never carried a movie. Dan Aykroyd had been John Belushi's sidekick but Belushi was dead and everything Aykroyd had been in without him had flopped. Jamie Lee Curtis was the daughter of Hollywood royalty but she was a horror movie scream queen who had never done comedy.

The studio looked at those three and said, we're taking an awfully big risk asking them to carry a major movie. Landis looked at them and saw three hungry actors with something to prove.

The beauty/ageism standard doesn't apply to men in the same way, but I'll say this for Dan and Rupert - neither shows any sign of becoming John Gielgud, but they've been beavering away getting good reviews in smallish projects. They obviously love acting. If I were a casting director I'd be happy to consider them.

I don't really see that with Emma. Maybe I'm being harsh, but she seems to have drifted along being handed things on the basis of being famous and beautiful, and she's approaching a point where that isn't happening any more. But she doesn't strike me as having any hunger. There's something very dilettantish about her. I can't really visualise her calling her agent and saying, get me something challenging.

That advert was directed by Watson

I watched that thinking it was a shame that the director had made her seem a bit naff ...

She's in that perfume ad, that must be earning her something. I didn't realise she hadn't done a film in 6 years

"Why should I be framed, and put in boxes?"

I really don't think she has the talent.

But maybe she would want to hone her craft and prove herself? Nothing wrong with that

she might have it in her to have the humility and application to do it and good on her if she does

If she wants to stay in acting she should try meaty supporting roles that don't rely on her looks.

She should do the exact opposite if she wants to stay in acting, her looks are the only reason she got the career she had.

I bet she's going to have an autobiography coming out.

If she wants to stay in acting she should try meaty supporting roles that don't rely on her looks. They'll be more interesting and challenging to play and might lead to a career with some longevity. She can afford to work minimum wage.

Wasn't the interview over two hours long? I wonder what else she talked about.

Actually, no I don't. I couldn't care less.

Gosh she's 35 now? Time really has flown.

It's not really a new thing is it? "Former child actor struggles to get acting work as an adult"

I was going to phrase it "struggling to get adult film roles " but that would mean something entirely different. Which might actually be part of it. Goldie Hawn used to say there are only 3 stages for an actress in Hollywood: Hollywood babe, district attorney and Driving Miss Daisy.

As the Cis Women with their ovarian privileges over TRAs will know, after this age you start having ppl mutter about clocks ticking and getting called perimenopausal

I reckon it will be laying the work for more patronage work and a future writing career. There may be a short stint of theatre or a project coming up, but I think it could work to get the worst out there now and to complete the reinvention later.

Otherwise, I cannot see why she is doing a PR cycle now.

What does she think she'll need to do PR for? I can't see her getting any further acting roles.

Re the ‘racist aunt’ comment: @CohensDiamondTeeth, did you follow the Prof Jo Phoenix / OU employment tribunal, on this board?

One of Jo’s colleagues said it about her, I seem to recall.

I wonder if this was her way to start the process of getting it out of the way well before she will do another cycle of PR in the future? Perhaps it has been a long term strategy.

If she gets this dealt out in the open now and dealt with, by the time Emma Watson has to do another PR cycle, this will have died down in most people’s minds. There will be plenty who won’t forget, but those not following closely will have.

Of course, she has to rebuild. At least now she can rebuild a fresh. Sure she has legacy and it is easier in a way than to start with nothing. I watch with interest.

The tide has turned she is setting her stall out just in case its reciprocated

Zoe Strimpel in the Spectator

The banality of Emma Watson | The Spectator

let's remember who had most of the money and all of the power in this situation. It wasn't any of the women, including Emma Watson.

I may not like her much but I sure ain't gonna try to imply that she's somehow responsible for the casting couch system, unlike some of our new overnight visitors

No, it isn't.

I mean we know the casting couch exists, and Weinstein was the tip of the iceberg, and his downfall hasn't made that problem go away. There will always be speculation about why certain starlets suddenly become the flavour of the month, but it feels distasteful to me.

There are more interesting career paths we could speculate on. Like asking why Phoebe Waller-Bridge is suddenly in everything leads us to Hollywood's habit of falling in love with a British comedian, spending a lot of money to bring them over, then having no idea what to do with them. That goes back to Dudley Moore if not further.

Or there's John Cusack. I used to be a big fan of John Cusack, and he seemed to be in everything, and then he hit the headlines for his latest antisemitic social media incident, so I checked his IMDB. Guess what, he used to do a steady six movies a year of which two would be blockbusters and he'd often have a Woody Allen film for his arthouse credentials. In the past ten years, everything he's done has been either straight to video or made in China. It's obvious he's been quietly cancelled and nobody in Hollywood will work with him - I don't know if it was the antisemitism did it, or he's constructed a conspiracy theory about why he's unemployable, but I'd love to know the backstory.

That's the kind of thing that I'm interested in. Yes, if an actress wants to talk about the casting couch I'm all ears, but I'm not interested in speculative slut shaming.

As a feminist board, it attracts a huge number of committed anti feminists.

Yes, it's not very feminist to speculate about which famous women might have had sex with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyj3vnkyn8o

I don't love feeling like I'm being manipulated, and some of the posters on this thread are making me feel like I'm being steered to disapprove of inconvenient women. 'side piece' for absolute fuck's sake

fucking hell, can you keep your social engineering PR bullshit to yourself? this is the feminism board

Interesting, I agree. I'd also point out that all of those are US, which is much crazier

Incidentally, I quite like Brett Cooper. A lot of US conservative female influencers give off strong 'mean girl' type energy, mocking and criticising non-feminine women, lesbians etc I haven't seen any of that from her, though tbf I haven't watched much.
She's also called out right wing weirdos who say women should not work & shame her for being pregnant & working, including at the Turning Point Women's Leadership Summit this year. She's apparently supportive of gay people (or at least men, these types are often nicer to gay men) which makes a change from Candace Owens types.

She seems like a genuine, sympathetic person, and I suspect her difficulties in childhood may have something to do with that.

Shame she couldn't have came out and offered her hand of friendship when JK was being kicked to the kerb!
She obviously has some ulterior motive!

Tbf while a lot of articles say EW was homeschooled, she was at the Dragon School until 13 & then Headington School, where she stayed until 18.

Often articles say she was homeschooled, and it's true that she missed a lot of school so had tutors, but she did attend school throughout her childhood.