Emma Watson returns to Oxford to do master's degree in writing
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London: Hollywood actress Emma Watson has joined Oxford University as a student for the second time. This time, she is pursuing an MA in Creating Writing. The 33-year-old from 2011 to 2012 academic year attended the prestigious university as part of the Visiting Student Programme.
She is on a break from her acting career and will start the Oxford course in September 2023.
The 33-year-old is most popular for playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise. In 2011, she joined Brown University but had to defer to focus on filming Harry Potter movies. It was during the same period that she attended Oxford.
She was speaking with Financial Times when she announced going back to college. She is on a five-year hiatus from the film industry and is exploring other facets of life. She recently launched an organic carbon-neutral gin 'Renais Gin' with her brother.
Speaking to Variety, she said that the break from the film industry is because she "wasn't very happy" with the profession.
"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 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," said the actress.
"I 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. 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, 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," she added.
When asked about returning to acting, she said: "Yes, absolutely. 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 anymore. Does that make sense?"
