Interview

BLASBERG: We’ve spoken about you possibly coming to America for university. What’s so appealing about going to an Ivy League school?

WATSON: I never thought that I would want to go to America for university. As a child, I aspired to go to Oxbridge, because that’s where my parents went. When my dad talks about his time there, he says it was the most incredible experience.

BLASBERG: So what made you entertain the idea of the States?

WATSON: Well, I did a Shakespeare course at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] last summer, and three quarters of the students were from abroad, mainly the United States. I started talking to them about what they were doing at their schools, and I respected the approach. Here, I feel the specification is very narrow, whereas in America, you’re encouraged to be broad and choose many different subjects. For someone who has missed as much school as I have, I want to go back and discover what else there is. I always loved school—I was a proper, proper nerd. I just want that back again.

BLASBERG: What are you going to study?

WATSON: History, English . . . I want to keep learning French, maybe some politics. I want to continue studying art.

BLASBERG: I think you should absolutely devote some studies to your painting. I keep looking at this big picture that you did of your stepbrother, which is hung above your couch.

WATSON: I guess I’m a little shy about my art, but I love painting people and expressions and faces. I’ve always done art, though not a lot of people know it.

BLASBERG: Which artists have influenced you?

WATSON: For this particular piece, I’d say Jenny Saville. Most of her stuff is quite gruesome, but I love her painting technique. I like anything to do with the body . . . I love Egon Schiele,
Gustav Klimt, and Francis Bacon. You and I went to the Bacon exhibit at Tate Britain last year, and I thought it was so moving.

BLASBERG: So that’s a requirement when you hit the Ivy League—time in the studio?

WATSON: It’s really important to me to do that. Since I haven’t been in school since July, I’ve only now realized how much I miss it. I don’t make time for it now, and you really have to sit yourself down and think about it and do it. As much as I could, when I wasn’t filming, I would go to school. When filming, I would send all of my work back to be marked by my teachers. As I got older, though, it was harder to slip in and out.

This is an excerpt of the May cover story. To read the full Emma Watson interview pick up a copy of Interview.

Derek Blasberg is a New York–based fashion journalist and writer. He is one of V Magazine’s senior editors and a contributing editor at style.com.