Emma Watson was once expected to ‘go off the rails’ at 30: ‘I’m going to have a surge of hormones and madness’
Emma Watson rose to movie stardom after starring in the hit Harry Potter Movies. Though she found early fame as a child, she avoided many of the pitfalls other young actors sometimes succumb to. But Watson once joked that she didn’t expect it to last and was saving her wild years for her 30s.
How Emma Watson felt when she turned 30
Watson felt mixed emotions as she turned 30. The young actress herself spoke about the common expectations that are often placed on adults entering their 30s and how it affected her.
“I was like, ‘Why is everyone making such a fuss about turning 30? This is no big deal,’” she once told British Vogue. “Cut to 29, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I feel so stressed and anxious.’ And I realize it’s because there’s suddenly a bloody influx of subliminal messages.”
It didn’t help that Watson felt the subtle pressures of having a family when she reached a certain age.
“If you haven’t built a house, if you don’t have a husband, if you don’t have a baby, and you’re turning 30, and you’re not in an incredibly safe and stable place in your career, or you’re still figuring things out… There’s a incredible amount of anxiety,” he added.
Emma Watson once joked that she had lost her mind at 30
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Watson once joked that she set different expectations for herself as she reached her third decade of life. The Beauty and the Beast The actress spent much of her childhood and youth keeping busy while avoiding tabloid controversy. But media pressure and attention from her made her sympathize with other young actors who weren’t so lucky.
“I can totally understand why young actors go crazy. The level of interest in their lives, the pressure to be perfect. That’s what you do, you screw it up,” she once told The Independent. “I don’t know why I haven’t gone off the rails. I don’t have time. I’m working too hard to be rebellious in nature.”
At the time, however, Watson joked that he was waiting until he was of a much older age to rebel.
“I’m sure when I reach 30 I will go crazy,” she said. “I’ll have this rush of hormones and insanity.”
Emma Watson came up with the word ‘self-associated’ to describe the pressures of turning 30
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When he turned 30, Watson claimed that he was not romantically involved with anyone. However, she was content not to have a partner, as well as the lifestyle of her suddenly 30-year-old self. But since the actress couldn’t identify a word to describe what she felt during that period, she made up her own.
“I did an interview with Vogue magazine a couple of months ago and talked about how, in the run up to my 30s, [I felt] this unbelievable sudden anxiety and pressure that I had to get married or have a baby or [be] move into a house. And there was no word for these kinds of subliminal messages, anxiety and pressure that I felt building up but couldn’t really name, so I used the word self-associated,” she once said in an interview with Teen Vogue.
She admitted that she was surprised by the strong reaction to the new term.
“For me it wasn’t so much about coining a word; it was more that I needed to create a definition for something that I didn’t feel like there was a language for. And it was interesting because it really irritated some people,” he continued. “It was less for me about the word but more about what it meant, just this idea that we need to take back the language and the space to express ourselves, because sometimes it’s really not there.”
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