Emma Watson (21 page)

The clothes were a hit.

Emma managed to top up her fashion credentials even further that spring with a whistlestop series of events that found her being hailed as Britain’s unofficial Ambassador of Fashion. She co-hosted the London Show Rooms initiative event in New York, flying the flag for Brit designers at a party organised by
American Vogue
and the British Fashion Council in an initiative that aimed to increase the profile of British design talent in the US. She wore a Christopher Kane leather-and-lace number that night. ‘I hear she gave a little squeak of delight when she tried it on,’ Kane told
Vogue
. ‘I was really impressed because, let’s face it, those dresses are hardcore and not everyone gets the point. Or, more to the point, can pull them off. Emma reminds me of a young Grace Kelly – clean and sophisticated. And, if she’s using a stylist, then Emma’s the one in control.’

Emma’s opinion was now in demand by the America fashionistas as to how she would sum up Britstyle. ‘It’s so funny because, now that I’m in America, I’m more able to define it,’ she told fashion website WWD. ‘Before I didn’t have an awareness of another style. I think it has to do with the weather. We have terrible weather. It’s very grey and drizzly, so we need things to cheer us up. And I think that leads to a lot of creativity and colour, and I think that’s
why our designers are so innovative. Because at home we’re kind of up against the elements in a sense. And we need cheering up. I think we do very well with kind of an eclectic mix. We have great vintage and we love to mix and match: high street and high fashion, vintage … and I think that really defines it as well.’

Meanwhile, back at Burberry, there was increasing interest in the models who had taken part in the shoot with Emma … and one of them in particular was attracting attention. The so-called ‘cool crowd’ that Emma was pictured with – as well as brother Alex – comprised model Max Hurd, grandson of former Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd; Matt Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour; and 19-year-old Yorkshire musician George Craig. Many of the shots featured Emma up close and personal with Craig. ‘I love being part of the family,’ Craig said. ‘Working with Burberry is obviously an absolute honour.’

‘He’s an incredibly talented young British musician,’ Burberry’s Christopher Bailey said. ‘I love George’s energy and his effortless style. He’s also a joy to work with, and it just so happens that he comes from my native Yorkshire in England.’

As lead singer of the band One Night Only, Craig had achieved more attention than success, but his band had generated a buzz, mainly thanks to the support of Radio 1 DJ Jo Wiley, who had taken a shine to the young band’s out-of-kilter brand of 80s pop rock. Their single ‘Just For Tonight’ made the top ten in 2007 and big things were expected of them. A One Night Only track, ‘It’s Alright’,
was also used in a video to show off the new Burberry campaign pictures.

Emma would go on to shoot a video for the band’s 2010 single ‘Say You Don’t Want It’ in New York. She gets to go on a night on the tiles with George as the band play on a rooftop before the punchline of the story is revealed, just as the singer is leaning in for a kiss. Being an aficionado of classic cartoons, Emma, with George, came up with a storyline, based on the Disney movie
Lady and the Tramp
. ‘I play Lady. Lady is a dog from the Upper East Side. She’s lost her owner, she’s in a dodgy neighbourhood, a bit scared. Then Tramp rocks up and gets her to come along for a ride round New York. Kind of a chance meeting that lasts for a certain period of time, like fleeting and transient, but kind of beautiful and life-changing.’

‘It’s great to have people like her and people from Burberry and all sorts of really influential people telling people about this really exciting thing we’ve got going on,’ the singer told XFM. ‘It’s lovely.’

Emma’s presence in the video was only enough to push the single to Number 23 in the charts that year, but more people seemed interested in her relationship with George Craig than in the music he and his band were producing. When they were snapped attending a play in June 2010, interest in the pair was increased. Any thought Emma might have had of a low-key visit to see First World War drama
War Horse
were doomed to failure when Craig tweeted, ‘Heading to London this afternoon, going to the theatre tonight with a wonderful lady.’

As far as the press were concerned, Emma had dumped
Jay Barrymore to take up with Spanish student Rafael Cebrian. Now she was the ‘wonderful lady’ on the arm of a young indie-rock singer.

Emma watchers got their confirmation of the couple’s relationship when the pair went to the 2010 Glastonbury festival. ‘I’ve just arrived and I’m blown away by the size of the festival,’ she told reporters who spotted the pair arriving. ‘We only finished filming last week so I’m still trying to get my head round it. I’m here to enjoy myself and plan to see lots of bands.’

George Craig added, ‘She wants to be a rock chick after ten years of Harry Potter.’

Craig had played Glastonbury with One Night Only two years earlier. He was keen to see the indie band The Cheek, while Emma had her eye on electro-folkie Imogen Heap – she’d been a longstanding fan.

The pair stood at the side of the stage as American band Vampire Weekend played and created a stir every time they appeared on the festival site. Press photographers roaming the site had a field day that year: Kate Moss and Pixie Geldof were also there.

Emma, wearing shorts and a camouflage corset – Burberry of course – got into the festival spirit by getting a temporary tattoo from the charity WaterAid that featured the words ‘Mother Lover’.

Radio 1 DJ Jo Wiley interviewed Emma and George live as part of the station’s Glastonbury coverage and cleverly managed to tease a confirmation out of them that they were together, asking them if this was their first date. At first, Emma deferred to George before saying, ‘We’ve been
friends since the Burberry shoot. When I was in the States, George was sending me through some of his music as he was recording it. I’m a big fan. I thought everything he did was amazing.’

When the DJ asked them if they had a celebrity couple ‘name’ yet, along the lines of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (Brangelina) or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (TomKat), Emma suggested WatAig.

‘You seem very loved up,’ Wiley told them. ‘It’s nice to see you looking so happy together.’

As the end of filming got nearer, there was a chance for Emma to see how Harry Potter would continue after the final films had been and gone. At the end of May, she went to get a sneak preview of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. The 20-acre themed area – part of the larger Islands of Adventure park – was due to open the following month and Emma took an early tour of the rides and attractions along with other cast members – including Oliver and James Phelps (the Weasley twins), Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) and, rather incongruously, Robbie Coltrane.

The idea of extending the Potter franchise had entered the story soon after the success of the initial films. The first serious suitors were Disney, who came in with the idea of a standalone theme park totally dedicated to all things Potter. Such a venture would require compromise – but neither Disney nor J. K. Rowling was in the business of compromise and the deal fell through. Universal then stepped in with the idea of giving over a section of their
existing park to Harry Potter. Universal were happy to let the author put her stamp on the park – they would
re-theme
the existing ‘Lost Continent’ sector of the Islands of Adventure site – and give it the ‘Jo Touch’. ‘I would have to say a lot of it is going to have the “Jo Touch”, because I’ve been very, very, very involved, which has been amazing,’ Rowling told a web chat with fans as the park was being prepared. ‘There were a few things that I really wanted to happen if it went ahead. And the key thing for me was if there was to be a theme park that Stuart Craig, who was the production designer on the films, would be involved – more than involved, that he would pretty much design it. Because I love the look of the films, they really mirror what’s been in my imagination for all these years. And I just think he’s done an incredible job. He’s an
Oscar-winning
, very well-known guy in the industry, so it’s not just me who thinks that. And he did consent to get involved, so I truly think that walking into the theme park will be as close as you will ever get to walking on to the film set, or to walking into Hogsmeade. Better, of course, because it’s 3D and you can walk around the corner and look at the back. It’s going to be quite incredible. I really believe that. Personally, I think it will be the best thing in the world of its type, having seen what I’ve seen.’

The author got so caught up with the experience when she visited that she bought a huge amount of sweets in the Honeyduke’s shop. The shop assistant was unsure whether they should take her money – the author pushed nearly $500 into his hand before walking out with her purchases.

For Emma, the theme park was a surreal notion: it was
one thing to walk into a shop and see yourself as an action figure, quite another to have rides, shops and attractions bearing your face. ‘When myself, Daniel and Rupert auditioned,’ Emma told
Fault
magazine, ‘we had no idea how big it was going to be. We thought we were only making two movies, let alone all the merchandise, fans and now a theme park. It’s weird but at the same time cool.’

On her visit, Emma got to see re-creations of key places and themes from the stories, sampling a butterbeer at the Hog’s Head pub and some food at the Three Broomsticks. She tried out the Forbidden Journey ride and experienced the sensation of having Moaning Myrtle talk to her as she used the toilet. ‘I was not expecting to feel like this. I really wasn’t. I was blown away,’ Emma said. ‘It’s really kind of amazing. I’ve always been a huge fan of the books, aside from the fact that I’ve been a part of the films, so for me it’s just such a pleasure and a delight to see all these things I’ve read about come to life. A film set has a cut-off point, you know – you’re only using a particular section of it – but this is a completely immersive environment. Being here was actually really moving and emotional for me, because I know that the sets are going to come down, but this will be here for ever.’

‘Emma and I had a rather emotional moment, actually,’ Robbie Coltrane said as he finished the tour, ‘because it was kind of like bits of your life suddenly made real.’

The
Sun
newspaper sent travel editor Lisa Minot to take an early look at the attraction. ‘After a sneak peek, I can say it is the most faithful re-creation of J. K. Rowling’s books and movies ever seen,’ she wrote in May 2010.
‘From Moaning Myrtle haunting the toilets to Potter and pals stalking the corridors, fans will be in heaven. The excitement starts the minute you walk through the ornate gates and spy the Hogwarts Express billowing steam at Hogsmeade train station. Snow sparkles on the roofs of village shops, the Three Broomsticks Inn and Hog’s Head pub. Hogwarts Castle towers on a grey, rocky crag above a forest of pines. You can pop into Ollivander’s Wand Shop or the Owl Post Office and enjoy three great rides. The park features a host of technological firsts and stars of the films are brought to life with state-of-the-art holograms, robotics and live action.’

Back at Leavesden, the final days of Potter filming were approaching. Emma started to wish she’d kept a better record of the last decade. She decided to buy a camera to document the final weeks and days of the extraordinary experience she’d been part of. ‘I wandered into a
secondhand
camera shop, and this very nice gentlemen persuaded me I needed an old black-and-white film camera,’ she told
Empire
magazine. ‘I realised I hadn’t taken any photos for the last ten years, so this time I’ve been bugging everyone. Takes me about ten minutes to take one because I have to work out the aperture, the shutter speed, the focus and everything. But the girl who was helping me develop the film accidentally turned on the lights in the darkroom and wiped everything. I couldn’t talk for about three days. I was devastated. Forget the arty cool effect of using old film cameras. It’s absolutely bollocks. Digital cameras and Photoshop is the way to go.’

Saturday, 12 June 2010 would be the last day of filming for the entire Harry Potter series. ‘Oh, my goodness! I can’t believe this is it,’ Emma said, recalling her feelings about that day while talking to the Scholastic website. ‘I can’t believe this day has finally come. I just thought it would never end, you know? I thought it would never be over. It just felt really strange, so I had to pinch myself. It was pretty weird.’

Producers threw a party and laid on a mariachi band to entertain cast and crew. The young stars reacted in different ways. The terminally easy-going Rupert Grint was by now the proud owner of his very own Mr Whippy ice-cream van. He brought it to the set and served cast and crew with 99s. It served to lighten the mood, but only temporarily. ‘The last day, the realisation was overwhelming,’ Grint told STV.

Grint spent part of it clearing out his dressing room, where he found toys he used to play with when he started out on the series. The tears were bubbling under. ‘It was really emotional. Emma and Dan were the first ones to go, and I just couldn’t help it. There was something really empty and final about it – plus the last scene was the most random scene we could have ended on. It was just us jumping through a fireplace, and that was it.’

Emma recalled being slightly disappointed that the whole of the adventure had come to just this, what she described as ‘a tiny scene’. ‘We were just jumping on to crash mats really, she said. ‘It felt very, very strange. Emotional. It felt like a moment in history.’

Filming was finished. Daniel Radcliffe was presented
with his prop glasses from
Deathly Hallows
, as well as the very first pair of glasses he wore as Harry Potter in
Philosopher’s Stone
. He marvelled at how tiny they were. ‘I would have swiped them if they hadn’t given them to me,’ he told CNN. ‘I absolutely would have stolen them.’