Watson on Hermione Granger

Watson is supportive of her alter ego, Hermione Granger. She called her "charismatic" and "a fantastic role to play" prior to the third film (2003),[12] and IGN.com even said Watson was "Hermione through and through" in preparation for the Goblet of Fire film.[16] When Watson took GCSE examinations in 10 subjects, achieving eight A* and two A grades, it spawned comparisons to Hermione Granger, who has been consistently written as a straight-A student by author J. K. Rowling.[30] In 2007, prior to the fifth film, Watson stated: "There are too many stupid girls in the media. Hermione’s not scared to be clever. I think sometimes really smart girls dumb themselves down a bit, and that’s bad. When I was 9 or 10, I would get really upset when they tried to make me look geeky, but now I absolutely love it. I find it's so much pressure to be beautiful. Hermione doesn’t care what she looks like. She's a complete tomboy.”[23] Finally, she also admits that there is quite a lot of herself in the confident and bookish Hermione: "I'm a bit of a feminist. I'm very competitive and challenging."[23]

Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling was said to be supportive of Watson from the early moments on.[7] In a 2007 interview with YOU Magazine, Watson was very appreciative of Rowling, stating she [Rowling] "has been really lovely and very supportive of the films - she comes on set and she is in e-mail contact with a lot of us. She just said to me, 'You are Hermione, you have completely become her,' which was just so nice and so generous of her [...] J K Rowling based the character on herself, so obviously she will have had a very strong idea of how she [Hermione Granger] would develop, but maybe I have played a small part in the way she is growing up. It would be very flattering if I had."