Emma Watson is glad to be free of her horrible $32 million Harry Potter gig

In last weeks’ Entertainment Weekly cover story on Harry Potter, Emma Watson is relieved to be done with Harry Potter and glad to be in college where she’s able to eat and sleep when she wants.

“It feels wonderful. I have such a structure when I’m working on Potter. I get told what time I get picked up. I get told what time I can eat, when I have time to go to the bathroom. Every single second of my day is not in my power. Being in college, I took pleasures in the smallest things. Like, ‘I’m going to wake up at 10 o’clock if I want to.’ Or ‘I’m going to eat a sandwich now.’ It was so liberating! I’d be smiling to myself, and friends would say, ‘Emma, what’s wrong?’ And I’d say, ‘I dn’t know. I’m just . . . happy.'”

What Emma doesn’t realize is that this is exactly the way most college students feel because high school (combined with  strict parents and/or after school jobs and activities) is just as controlling about when you have to get up, when and what you eat, when you can go to the bathroom, and exactly what you do with your time. The average teenager is just as miserable as Emma Watson was, probably much more so, and they get the added bonus of not bringing home bucketfuls of cash.

In fact, Emma alsmost quit Harry Potter when she was 16. If she had, she would’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like to have your life controlled for free (or even pay to have it controlled in a private school.) She soldiered on, however, and it resulted in  being wet and cold for three months with Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) while she desperately daydreamed about attending Brown University, where she was accepted. She commented to EW after a particularly sopping day “I hate to sound whiny, but it’s horrible. This has definitely been the most intense, grueling period of film making I’ve ever done.”

Apparently Emma didn’t realize the enormity of her financial gain until she turned 18, when her dad revealed that she was worth $32 million.