Emma Watson and I are sitting knee to knee on the plushest sofa in the Royal Suite at The Savoy. Ten minutes ago she greeted me with a sisterly hug, and since then I’ve not been able to shake the feeling that we’re at school and about to do the Christmas show together. We ask for the room to be cleared so we can talk freely, but there are still a dozen or more assistants, stylists and crew hidden behind a wall of light, filming us on camera, still and silent, like the antique bronze cupids posing on the mantelpiece. But Emma seems OK with the set-up. I suppose she’s been watched almost her entire life.

The story of how Watson became one of the most recognisable women on the planet is folklore of sorts. She was nine years old when she was picked out of a line-up of would-be actors in her school gym to be in a film that would change her life forever. “It’s so bizarre and otherworldly, what happened to me,” she says in that instantly recognisable preppy English accent, alluding, not for the first time in our near-two-hour interview, to the trappings of growing up and existing in the public eye.

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Twenty years later, and that child star is now one of the world’s most bankable actors and recognised activists. In recent years, Watson has used her fame and global following to retool herself as a woman with the power to change hearts and minds on issues from gender inequality to sustainable fashion. She has been something of a pioneer when it comes to championing dressing ethically, and is a vocal advocate for Good On You – a campaign to inform consumers about which labels sell ethically produced clothes. She uses its app, which rates brands on their production methods to check an outfit’s suitability based on its environmental impact; the Vogue team used it to source all the fashion for this shoot in London’s Bushy Park.

In 2014, Watson was appointed a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, launching HeForShe, an initiative to include men in the conversation about gender equality. In light of the #metoo revelations, last year she donated £1 million to help those affected by sexual harassment, and last summer launched a legal advice line in England and Wales for the same cause. “I feel uncomfortable taking up as much space as I’m taking up and not speaking about [politics and social justice],” she says about her activist work. “It just doesn’t feel right anymore.”

It’s the tail end of summer outside, and the change of season appears to have put her in a reflective, candid mood. She is wearing an oversized black shirt with white stitching from Alexander McQueen, her wavy chestnut hair fully grown-out from the pixie crop she had in her early twenties. Interviews aren’t something she has ever professed to be comfortable doing, but she is chatty and kind and prone to squeezing my knee whenever things get emotional.

We first met last year at a meeting for activists, where she was evidently keen to listen and learn from campaigners from all walks of life, and she asked me lots of questions about my experiences as a trans woman and activist. I was impressed by her empathy – after all, as an actor her job is to put herself in other people’s shoes – and I admired the time she spent trying to connect with stories that may be very different to her own, and walked away with an appreciation of how much thought and care she puts into what she has to say. “I need to be connected to, you know, people that are sharing the ‘I didn’t sleep last night either’ conversation,” she tells me. “And so creating space and bringing groups of people together has been such a balm for me in the last six months.”

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Another balm has been acting. This Christmas, Watson will take on the role of Margaret “Meg” March in Little Women. Directed by previous Oscar nominee Greta Gerwig, this adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s American classic is millennial catnip, starring the likes of Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep. The project couldn’t be a better fit for Emma, combining, as it does, many of her loves: literature (Watson’s intersectional feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf, has 420,000 Instagram followers), film and exploring the female experience.

As Meg, Watson plays the most traditional of the March girls, who encourages her sisters to grow into “little women”. It’s an intriguing choice of role, given that Meg is a character who’s been criticised over the years for not being free-thinking enough. But she is, says Watson, a reminder that there are many different ways to be a woman. “I have this theory,” she says, “Louisa [May Alcott] had a lot of sisters in real life, but I think also she kind of put a little piece of herself into all of the March sisters. I think it was a really good literary device to explain that there’s not one way to be a feminist – which we still seem to be struggling with.”

She warms to her theme. “With Meg’s character, her way of being a feminist is making the choice – because that’s really, for me anyway, what feminism is about. Her choice is that she wants to be a full-time mother and wife. To Jo, being married is really some sort of prison sentence. But Meg says, ‘You know, I love him and I’m really happy and this is what I want. And just because my dreams are different from yours, it doesn’t mean they’re unimportant.’”

Which begs the question: what are Emma Watson’s dreams? She turns 30 in April, and describes 2019 as having been “tough”, because she “had all these ideas” about what her life was supposed to look like at this age. “I was like, ‘Why does everyone make such a big fuss about turning 30? This is not a big deal…’ Cut to 29, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I feel so stressed and anxious. And I realise it’s because there is suddenly this bloody influx of subliminal messaging around. If you have not built a home, if you do not have a husband, if you do not have a baby, and you are turning 30, and you’re not in some incredibly secure, stable place in your career, or you’re still figuring things out…” she pauses for breath. “There’s just this incredible amount of anxiety.”

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If it’s staggering to think that Watson worries about this stuff, it’s comforting, too. “I never believed the whole ‘I’m happy single’ spiel,” she continues. “I was like, ‘This is totally spiel.’ It took me a long time, but I’m very happy [being single]. I call it being self-partnered.”

She is, however, dating. “Not one specific person,” she’s keen to clarify, “but I’m going on dates.” So how, in this tricky landscape, does one of the world’s most famous women meet men? “Dating apps are not on the cards for me,” she concedes, and I tell her that, frankly, she’s had a lucky escape. “I’m very lucky in the sense that because I went to university and because I’ve done these other things outside of film, my friends are really good at setting me up. Really good. And what’s really nice is some of my best friends are people I got set up on a date with and it didn’t work out.” That’s very emotionally mature, I say, impressed. “I didn’t think it was possible,” Watson agrees. “And it really is possible. And it’s actually great.”

It’s rare insight into her notoriously low-key, and otherwise hard to imagine, day-to-day life. She smiles and says she splits her time between London and New York (I was shocked to learn that, as a self-confessed “nomad”, she doesn’t have a permanent address), and her hobbies seem to be on the quieter side. She loves reading, and famously balanced her career and education for three years while studying English literature at Brown University and Worcester College, Oxford. She’s also a qualified yoga teacher. Most interestingly, for someone with a voice as widely heard as hers, she spends 10 days a year at a silent retreat. Frankly, who could blame her if she didn’t want to speak to anybody for 10 months, let alone 10 days?

Despite what looks like the leanings of a closet introvert, she draws strength building communities with people who, like her, are trying to change things. One of her greatest pleasures in making Little Women, she says, was spending time with fellow actor-activists. “What was really nice about working with Laura Dern and Meryl Streep was that the three of us knew each other way before we did Little Women. We met in activist spaces, so we had this allyship and solidarity as activists that had been part of a certain movement before we ever worked together.”

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While she is an established feminist champion today, when Watson first started speaking out on gender issues she was criticised for being a “white feminist” – someone whose privilege prevents them from seeing that other women may face extra struggles because they are women of colour, trans or working class, for example. Most people become defensive and hostile when their privilege is pointed out, but her reaction was a masterclass in how to listen and learn: “I saw ‘white feminism’ coming up again and again, and I was like, ‘Hey, this is clearly something that I have to meaningfully engage with. I have to understand this better.’” She read everything she could lay her hands on by black feminists – then used her platform to raise up women who aren’t often heard. Some of Watson’s peers in Hollywood, not to mention certain sections of the British media, could learn a thing or two from her.

Watson is also a staunch supporter of the trans community, which she is keen to discuss today. As the British press continues to demonise trans people and claim there is a conflict between trans rights and traditional feminism, I ask her what she’d say to, for instance, people who think allowing trans women to use public toilets puts “real” women in danger. “That makes me really mad,” she says. “Having spoken with, or having friends who are trans, there’s so many more important issues that are not being discussed. We’re dealing with life-and-death stuff.”

She draws a comparison between being famous and being trans, in that both can leave you afraid to walk out the front door. “I feel anxious walking down the street, I feel anxious getting on a train,” she adds, seriously. “It’s totally different, and oftentimes it’s not my safety that’s at risk. But I have insane amounts of empathy for what it must be like [for you].” She also points out – correctly, I believe – that most people who talk about trans issues have never even spoken to a trans person. “I understand fearing what you don’t know, but go and learn. Making people feel not included is… is just such a painful, awful thing to do,” she says, her voice breaking, “and it has such big effects.”

Watson’s childhood is well recorded: her parents are lawyers; she was born in Paris and spent her first five years in France. Age six, she went to the Dragon School in Oxford and took acting lessons at the local branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts. She was determined to become an actor even as a little girl, long before she was cast in Harry Potter. “I played a symbol,” she says, thoughtfully. “I know this, because she’s a symbol for me.” But Emma Watson is not Hermione Granger. “I’m not. And I’m also not what, weirdly, my name has come to mean,” she says of her own fame. “Even people that are really close to me sometimes can’t let it go. Or see just me. And then sometimes I have to go, ‘No, no – I need exactly what you need. I’m just as human as you are. I’m just as insecure as you are. I struggle just as much as you struggle.’”

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Strangely, it’s a lighthearted conversation about awkward kisses that seems to illustrate the unique position she finds herself in: “I’ll be making out with someone and then I am on the telly behind us,” she says, “and all I can hear is the Harry Potter theme tune as I’m kissing someone, and I’m like, ‘Do I turn it off? Do I just ignore this? Is he thinking about this? Is it just me thinking about this? Maybe he doesn’t know what the Harry Potter theme tune sounds like. Maybe it’s just me.’” We begin to laugh, but the specific loneliness of being famous from a young age feels very real. Does she ever enjoy the flamboyant side of celebrity? The photo shoots? The red carpets? The parties? “That’s something I’ve sat in therapy and felt really guilty about, to be honest,” she says. “Like, ‘Why me?’ Somebody else would have enjoyed and wanted this aspect of it more than I did. I’ve wrestled a lot with the guilt around that. Of being, like, ‘I should be enjoying this more. I should be more excited.’ And I’m actually really struggling.

“There’s been moments when everything just got so big, where I almost had vertigo on my own life,” she continues. “And it’s got so big I felt disconnected.” She finds peace in these moments by remembering: “I am a sister. I belong to a family… There’s a whole existence and identity that I have, actually, that’s really important and weighted and solid that has nothing to do with any of that.” She says she has even felt the need to ask her parents, “‘Am I still your daughter?’ You know? It has felt so weird sometimes.” She becomes visibly upset sharing this and I feel an overwhelming urge to hug her.

What’s the thing she’s most proud of? The activism is a big part of it, of course. But for all the extremities of her life, she takes great comfort in the basics. “I’ll let other people be the judge, but I feel sane, and feel normal and myself. I think I’m the most proud of that. Because sometimes I look at it all, and I go, ‘I was lucky to come out the other side of that.’”

Before we part ways, I ask her if there is another Emma Watson, in an alternate universe, who didn’t get picked out in the school gym for an audition 20 years ago. “Like that film Sliding Doors? I mean, I’m 29 now. I got cast in Harry Potter when I was nine years old… I don’t even have that many memories from before.” Would she have found fame anyway, I wonder? “I always loved poetry. I always loved performing in that way,” she replies, a self-possessed woman now. “I think I would have done it another way.”

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Hair: Anthony Turner. Make-up: Lynsey Alexander. Nails: Lorraine Griffin. Set Design: Andy Hillman. Production: Holmes Production. Digital Artwork: Output. With thanks to the Royal Parks.

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