Harry Potter star Emma Watson’s career pause in 2019 reflects a common phenomenon with ambitious workers: burnout. She’s been on a hiatus from movie acting since 2019, her last role was in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, where she was about 29 at the time—and now she’s revealing the grueling schedules and emotional toll that forced her to step back.
“I just used to completely sacrifice myself for whatever the thing was I was trying to achieve,” Watson said on an Episode of “On Purpose” by Jay Shetty yesterday.
“Making films, the hours on them are so demanding, that to have your own life alongside that, to have that balance is almost impossible,” the star with an estimated $85 million net worth added.
“You go through these working six days a week, 14 to 16 hour days–and then you’re just dropped off at the end of it, and maybe you’ll have a two or three month gap, and then there’s just nothing.”
The podcast is one of the first long-form interviews Watson has done in about 5 years, where she expressed the personal toll of being one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. She says it got to the point where “sensory overload” that comes with being famous made it hard to carry out simple everyday activities.
