Emma Watson is calling out Hollywood’s unrealistic beauty standards and the pressure placed on women in the industry.
The Harry Potter star, 35, appeared on the Sept. 24 episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty and opened up about the toll of having to constantly meet expectations of glamour and perfection.
Watson admitted that her public-facing persona often felt like something separate from her real self.
“She’d become reproduced so many times over and become so loaded by all this different stuff, she became too heavy to carry,” she explained.
“I don’t even know if I can be that b-tch anymore. I don’t know how to live up to what I look like on the cover of a magazine. There’s such a glamorization that comes hand in hand with being a public, famous person, especially if you’re a woman.”
The actress said she envies the simplicity afforded to her male costars in Hollywood, noting that they can show up in casual clothes without scrutiny while women are expected to undergo hours of preparation to appear “acceptable enough to be on camera.”
She described it as exhausting and compared it to “a survivor island game show beauty nightmare.”
Watson also praised Pamela Anderson for recently stepping onto the red carpet without heavy makeup, calling it a powerful and courageous act.
“Kudos to Pamela Anderson recently doing the thing because the amount of courage that it takes to do that, I can not begin to even express to you,” she said.
“It’s wild. The expectations are insane. It’s impossible. The beauty expectations are so difficult to reach, and the bar gets raised all the time.”
Her candid remarks arrive shortly after she opened up about her decision to step away from acting in an interview with Hollywood Authentic.
Reflecting on her years in the spotlight, Watson said she struggled with the transactional nature of the industry.
“I think I’ll be honest and straight-forward, and say: I do not miss selling things,” she admitted. “But I do very much miss using my skill-set, and I very much miss the art.”
Watson’s latest comments highlight how deeply exaggerated beauty standards remain in Hollywood, while also applauding women like Anderson who are challenging them.