Emma Watson's Reaction to Seeing Noma Dumezweni Play Grown-Up Hermione Is the Closure We All Need
By Erin Reimel. Photos: Getty Images.
We can't wait to see Emma Watson as Belle in the live-action Beauty and the Beast in just a few days, but we'll always (always) love her as the super-smart, incredibly brave Hermione Granger from Harry Potter—after all, she played the part for more a decade. But on the stage for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, in London's West End, it's not Watson who's playing Hermione: instead, it's the incredibly talented Noma Dumezweni. And when Watson got the chance to meet her...well, get out the tissues, because it's going to pull at your heartstrings.
In Cursed Child, Dumezweni plays a middle-aged Hermione who's now a mother, the Minister for Magic, and married to Ron Weasley. For Watson, seeing a character she played as a teenager suddenly all grown up was (understandably) a bit of a shock—but in a great, closure-filled way.
"It's so funny because I went to see the stage production, and well, I just didn't think through what it could mean to me; I didn't know what to expect really," she said on Entertainment Weekly radio Friday. "I was not prepared for how emotional it was to meet Noma, who plays the new Hermione. I was in this little room off the side of the theater, and she came in and gave me this big hug, and I just burst into tears. It was so emotional for me to know that Hermione was going to be OK and that everything sort of worked out and what her future would look like."
She compares Hermione's new life to a Horcrux because the character lives on—just in someone else now. "It was such a relief to share her with someone, to share that with another person—and to know what it was like to be part of that character's life," Watson said.
And the obvious question is: Is there a chance Watson will ever reprise her role? "Definitely nothing planned at the moment," she said, "I wouldn't want to get anyone's hopes up... ask me in another 10 [years]." (Hey, that's not a no.)
Luckily for American Harry Potter fans, it's looking like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child might be making its way to Broadway next spring.
This story originally appeared on Glamour.
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