It’s been quite a while since we last saw Emma Watson on screen, as the actress has taken a step back from acting in recent years. However, she’s still one of those names who left a lasting impression on an entire generation, thanks to her decade-long run as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise. But when she moved on, she took on some pretty interesting roles that were very different from the image people had gotten used to seeing from her. Not all of them were major successes, and her filmography isn’t exactly the longest, but some of her films are memorable enough for fans to still think back on them.
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And it’s fair to say that some of her most fun or unexpected roles came when she decided to move away from the perfect-girl image she had built in the Wizarding World. WIth a range of characters who were vulnerable, mature, and even superficial, we’ve rounded up the actress’ 5 best performances to date.
5) My Week with Marilyn
When thinking about Watson’s best performances, My Week with Marilyn is hardly the first one that comes to mind. And why? Simply because her role as Lucy is small, but on the other hand, it’s an interesting first test for the actress after spending ten years playing Hermione. The story follows Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) during a week working on the production of The Prince and the Showgirl, when he ends up getting close to Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), but Lucy comes into the picture as a young wardrobe assistant who becomes romantically involved with him. She’s a character who starts out pretty confident that she has Colin’s attention, then realizes that Marilyn is taking up more and more space in his life. And there’s just something very natural about the way she reacts to it.
The interesting part of all this is that Watson doesn’t turn her performance into some big event. She could have easily chosen a much more daring role to leave her wizarding image behind, but Lucy is a relatively ordinary character, and that actually works in her favor. Besides, she has a more relaxed and mature presence that manages to perfectly capture Lucy’s frustration without overdoing it. It’s a short performance in My Week with Marilyn, definitely, but it’s good enough to show that there was an actress there beyond the character audiences had known since she was a kid. She steals the scene.
4) Little Women
To this day, there’s still a group of people who absolutely love Greta Gerwig’s version of Little Women, and it’s not hard to see why, given it’s been regarded as one of the best adaptations of the past few years. And yes, Watson is part of the cast as one of the March sisters, and it’s fair to say the role suits her perfectly. In the movie, she plays Meg, the oldest sister and the one with the most traditional view: she wants to get married, have a family, and build a life with someone she loves, even if that means giving up financial comfort. The problem is that Meg also knows exactly what she’s leaving behind, so when she sees Amy (Florence Pugh) having access to things she can’t afford or watches Jo (Saoirse Ronan) trying to build a career, there’s a small doubt about whether she made the right choice.
That contradiction in the character becomes very clear without the actress even having to say anything; you can see that Meg chose a simple life and is happy with it, but that doesn’t mean she never feels jealous of the people who get to have other opportunities. The scene where she buys an expensive piece of fabric and then regrets it is a good example: it’s a small moment, but Watson manages to make her seem guilty, frustrated, and a little embarrassed all at once for wanting something she knows she can’t afford. Little Women certainly has more showy performances, but hers has a certain strength since she understands that her character doesn’t need to be the most human (which makes perfect sense considering the story’s essence and message).
3) Noah
He’s a pretty direct way to erase any kind of association Watson might have with Harry Potter. In Noah, she plays Ila, the adopted daughter of the titular character (Russell Crowe), who grows up alongside the family after surviving a tragedy as a child. As an adult, she marries Shem (Douglas Booth) and finds out she’s pregnant, which is significant because she believed she was unable to have children — only this happens when Noah starts believing that his mission requires his descendants to not survive. And because of that, some of the film’s toughest scenes are carried by her as the character tries to convince her own father that what he’s doing is monstrous. And she doesn’t need to just scream her way through the scene; she can start vulnerable and slowly build toward desperation.
In Noah, Watson shows a huge amount of dramatic potential, especially in the moments when Ila starts to panic. The scenes involving her pregnancy and confrontation with Noah could become completely over-the-top, given a movie that’s already so grand and packed with symbolism, but Watson keeps the character grounded in something pretty simple: the fear of losing her children. And as the feature keeps raising the stakes, she doesn’t fail to match that intensity. Overall, it’s still a performance that’s far from being her most praised, but the work here proves just how well she can handle heavier material (and share the screen with Crowe without letting herself be overshadowed).
2) The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of Watson’s best movies. Here, she plays Sam, an older, outgoing girl who seems pretty confident in herself and becomes friends with Charlie (Logan Lerman), an extremely shy freshman who is trying to survive high school after going through some traumatic experiences. At first, she seems exactly like the kind of girl Charlie would idealize: pretty, fun, popular, and much more confident than he is. However, as the story goes on, you realize that it’s just an image and not the whole truth, because Sam has her own problems, insecurities, and traumas. The thing is that in execution, that shift could have easily felt forced. Of course, a lot of a production depends on the director, but the actress seems to have a real handle on making the character feel believable throughout it.
Sam dances, makes jokes, flirts, speaks without thinking too much, and is comfortable taking up space, and Watson embraces all of that in a way that shows just how ready she was to do something different at the time. Plus, her chemistry with Lerman is essential to the movie, because Sam never feels like she exists just to help Charlie overcome his problems; she has her own story going on, and the actress makes sure that comes through. There’s a sensitivity to her performance and a strong emotional depth that, together, make the whole thing genuinely enjoyable to watch. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is already an interesting movie on its own, but when it comes to Watson specifically, this is the first and best recommendation for anyone who wants to see something from her outside of Harry Potter.
1) The Bling Ring
This is the high point of her career and her strongest choice when it comes to performance itself. The Bling Ring put her in a role that was completely different from what she was used to playing. Instead of portraying someone responsible, calm, and intelligent, here it’s the opposite. In this movie, based on a true story, we see her as Nicki Moore (heavily inspired by Alexis Neiers), a teenager who takes part in a series of burglaries targeting celebrities’ homes in Los Angeles and doesn’t seem to understand how serious what she’s doing actually is. She steals clothes and belongings, talks about fame as if it were some kind of spiritual goal, and whenever she has to explain her behavior, she turns everything into an opportunity to talk about personal growth.
In short, she’s a shallow, self-centered character who is disconnected from reality, and that willingness to look ridiculous is what makes the performance so fascinating when you remember that it’s Watson. She simply takes this kind of behavior and pushes its most absurd aspects to create a Nicki who seems to be permanently performing for an audience, while at the same time never feeling cartoonish or forced. Perhaps out of all her work, The Bling Ring is the most interesting one to analyze, so much so that critics, even when ther weren’t really impressed with the movie, singled out her performance. It’s definitely, to this day, her most memorable role.
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Image Courtesy of Marvel -
A scene from Death to Smoochy -
Image Courtesy of Marvel Studios
