On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Emma Watson EXCLUSIVE: The Story She Has Not Shared Until Now
Episode Date: September 24, 2025Do you think fame makes people happy? Would you give up money for peace of mind? Today, Jay sits down with Emma Watson, actress, activist, and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, for a rare and deeply perso...nal conversation. Beloved around the world as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, Emma has since become a powerful voice for gender equality and sustainability. In this exclusive interview, Emma reflects on her decision to step away from Hollywood and shares how time for study and self-discovery has allowed her to redefine success, find fulfillment, and reclaim her voice. Emma shares the challenges of growing up in the public eye, carrying enormous responsibility from such a young age, and the courage it took to step back from a thriving career to prioritize her health and personal growth. She reflects on how fame blurred the lines between who she was and the roles she played, and how learning to embrace vulnerability, discomfort, and imperfection has become central to her growth. Together, Jay and Emma explore the power of speaking truth with kindness, the importance of creating art from personal experience, and why building authentic relationships rooted in honesty and care matters more than any external achievement. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Be Honest With Yourself How to Learn From Discomfort How to Embrace Failure as a Starting Point How to Separate Who You Are From What You Do How to Build Truly Supportive Friendships How to Step Away While Staying True to Yourself How to Speak Truth With Kindness How to Live Aligned With Your Values Every day is a chance to pause, return to what matters most, and take even the smallest step toward living with honesty and purpose. You’re allowed to evolve, to begin again, and to create a life that feels whole and meaningful, one choice, one conversation, one truth at a time. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:35 Choosing to Show Up for Yourself 05:50 Designing a Life You Truly Enjoy 09:09 Admitting When Life is Challenging 11:06 Rediscovering the Joy of Learning 17:27 Why Discomfort Can Be Your Greatest Teacher 21:13 Taking Accountability With Grace and Courage 23:10 Sensitivity as Your Superpower 26:16 Lessons From a Nontraditional Childhood 30:38 Do You Still Need the Spotlight? 34:16 The Healing Power of Taking a Pause 41:38 Living Under Intense Public Pressure 44:55 Living Between Two Worlds 49:15 How Did You Become Hermione? 54:03 Separating Self From the Role You Play 57:54 The Hidden Cost of Never Slowing Down 01:07:40 Dating is Complicated For Everyone! 01:09:57 Revealing the Real You to Others 01:11:44 Emma’s One-Woman Play 01:20:08 What is Real Love? 01:26:27 Finding Love Beyond the Fantasy 01:32:35 Facing the Question: Why Are You Not Married Yet? 01:38:47 Trust Versus Telling the Truth 01:41:29 Choosing Partnership, Not Obligation 01:44:56 Asking Yourself the Hard Questions 01:48:25 How Fame Reshapes Everyday Life 01:51:44 What Did It Really Take to Step Away? 01:56:45 Learning to Trust Your Inner Voice 02:00:21 Loving Yourself Without Judgment 02:05:45 Finding Acceptance in Community 02:08:00 What Makes a Real Friend? 02:13:58 What Work Are You Avoiding? 02:32:20 Honoring the People Who Shape Us 02:44:01 Remembering Our Shared Humanity Episode Resources: Emma Watson | Instagram Emma Watson | FacebookSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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So what happened at Chappaquittic?
Well, it really depends on who you talk to.
There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond.
And left a woman behind to drown.
Chappaquitic is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine
took control. Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's
royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedys on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, it's Janae, aka Cheeky's from Cheeky's and Chill
podcast. And I'm bringing you an all new mini podcast series called Sincerely Jeanne. Sure,
I'm a singer, author, businesswoman, and podcaster, but at the end of the day, I am
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i realized have the career and the life that looks like the dream but are you really happy emma
are you really healthy and have to admit to myself that i wasn't was one of the scariest things
I've ever had to do.
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Jay Shetty.
Jay Shetty.
The one, the only.
Jay Shetty.
Emma, welcome to On Purpose.
I'm so grateful that you're here.
And, you know, you've kind of been out of the public eye for a while now.
Yes.
And don't do that many interviews.
I've watched the interviews you have done even before we plan to do this.
And I wanted to ask from an intention point almost, why now, why today, why here?
I think I mentioned, but I read your book because my dear friend, Nupa, told me that I should.
And every now and again, I would see you come up on my feed.
I don't spend much time on Instagram anymore.
But when I did, I just felt like you were having a different conversation.
And it's not that I have stopped doing interviews because I want to hide myself away.
I think it's because I wanted to be able to have a certain type of conversation.
that I didn't seem able to find a space for.
And so I called Nooper and said,
I think I just reached out to Jay
to see if you would let me come and do his podcast on Monday.
And she was like, I've been waiting for this.
I wondered when you would do this.
I was like, how did you know I was going to do it?
She's like, I don't know.
I just felt like this was coming.
So here I am.
And you said yes, and the timing worked.
I contacted you last week, and it's Monday.
and so...
Well, that means the world to me, truly, I'm so grateful for that
because the few interactions and conversations we've had since then
and you've sent me a few things to read over,
whether it's journals or reflections, and honestly,
I think I just said it to you a few moments ago,
and I mean it, even if we weren't having this conversation today
and you just sent me those things to reflect on myself,
that would have already been a gift.
And so the opportunity to actually sit with you
and to talk about these things
and have the space to have a conversation
that you feel you haven't had before means the world to me.
And so thank you for trusting me.
And I look forward to getting to know you so much better.
But let's dive in.
I wanted to start by asking you,
like you said something there that was really beautiful
because you stopped for a moment.
Then you said it's easier to be honest.
And I wanted to understand what that meant to you
and how that feels.
Such a big part of my job was trying to think three steps ahead
of how everything that I would say could negatively impact.
the film that I was trying to do justice to and do service to
and make sure that people understood what the director had intended
and I felt this enormous sense of responsibility all the time
to honour so many people's work that put together something like a film
or even to some degree I just did a fragrance with Prada
and it's the first perfume bottle that you can refill
and I don't know. I take my job seriously, I guess. And so interviews to me felt a lot like
chess and it required so much energy. And I think what's nice about the way that I'm showing up today
is I'm just showing up for myself and for once. I actually am not here to speak on behalf of
anyone else or anything else other than myself, which is unusual.
Yeah, I think it's such a fascinating thing because as a viewer,
before I got closer to the industry. As a viewer, everything's made to feel in traditional media
so easy and it has levity and it feels like you're getting someone's real personality. And
then you realize that you are, there's definitely reality to it and truth to it. Yes. But at the
same time, naturally, it's work. Yeah. And there's a job. And I think it's not as,
and you can shed more light on this. I don't think it's always as insidious or as dark as people may think
it is, but there's just, it's a job and it's work and there's results that matter.
Yeah, 100%. And I think within those contexts, everyone is trying to be as authentic as they
humanly can be. But there's something about, I think it's why I mentioned earlier about why
I felt like this was a good space. There's something inherently written into certain types of
forms of media, which is that it doesn't matter what intention or how authentically
you want to show up, but the form
somehow doesn't allow it
to some degree. And I've
become obsessed with this recently. I've been looking
at, okay, what is written into the
form of something like Twitter or Instagram
or TikTok or a podcast
versus, or a photograph versus
a film versus a piece of writing? And
it's really interesting to see what
a different medium or different form
allows or doesn't allow
and or like actually
creates or encourages.
I've never done a podcast before, but
I love, I think what I love about it is the, is the intimacy of it. It's like, I feel like people
listen to podcasts when they're like, I certainly do anyway, like first thing in the morning when I'm
taking my shower or I'm going on my walk or I'm making my breakfast. It's really like personal
intimate time. And I think the long form version of these kinds of conversations allows for such
a different kind of discussion that I don't think was possible before. Yeah, absolutely. I can
agree with you more. I was going to ask you actually, because I want everyone to get up to date with where
you are now. Like, what is your day-to-day life look like? You just said, like, I wake up and a shower
and I go on a walk. Like, what does your day-to-day life look like right now? And what makes,
what's it made of and what are the things that you love and look forward to? I recently started
riding a bicycle. And yes, I started riding a bicycle before my driving ban. But now it's
particularly fortuitous. I also ride a bicycle for that reason. But that was mainstream news.
Yeah. Oh, my God. I was getting phone call. Like,
It's on the BBC.
It's on international worldwide news.
I was like, my shame is everywhere.
This is, I mean, what I say is?
I don't know.
I think in a funny way, what the sweetest result of it was getting so many messages
from people being like, happen to me too.
I feel you, this is awful.
It sucks, which was kind of nice in a way.
You want a lift.
Yeah, totally.
Do you need a lift?
I was like, actually, yes.
But I think, again, it's funny.
Like I went from, when you work on movies, I don't know if people know this, but like, they literally will not ensure you to drive yourself to work. I've asked so many times. You have to be driven. You have to be driven. It's like not a choice. And especially because they need you there, you know, down to the minute, basically, depending on what they have going on. And so I went from basically only driving myself on weekends or during holiday to then when I became a student driving myself all the time. And yeah, I did not have the experience or skis.
clearly, which I now will and do. But I think, again, this was one of these like awkward
transitions I made from kind of living this like very, very structured life to living a life
where I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to get myself to this place and I'm going to like
do this thing that I've basically not done since I was 10 years old. So it's been a discovery
and a journey that's been, yeah, I guess humbling because...
on a movie set, I'm able to do all of these, like, extremely complex things, stunts, sing,
dance, like, do this thing, do that, whatever. And I'm like, yep, don't worry about it, guys.
No worries. I've got you. And then I get home and I'm like, okay, Emma, you seem unable to
remember keys. You seem unable to, like, keep yourself at 30 miles an hour in a 30 miles speed
limit. Like, you don't seem able to do some pretty, like, basic life things. And it was definitely
kind of, yeah, I had days where I just wanted to turn around to people and be like,
I used to be good at things, okay? I used to be really good at things. And I know it doesn't
look like that right now, but I used to, I can do things normally. So yeah, it's been, it's
been humbling. I feel like all of us, I feel like all of us can relate to that, though,
because doesn't everyone forget their keys, their wallet, doesn't know where things are? Like,
these are like serious. And by the way, I was, I think I was three points away from losing my
license before I moved to the States. Thank you for that confession. I appreciate that so much.
Because I was in the States for, I've been in the States now for nine years. And I think it happened
just, but then all the points get wiped off. Wow. And I think I'm now back to six points.
I spend two months in London a year. Okay. This makes me feel. Every time I go back, I seem to.
Very much better. Yeah. Wow. So I'm confessing to. Okay. Thank you. But I haven't lost it.
A lot of people. Actually, a lot of people. Actually, a lot of people.
have taken it upon themselves to come and confess to me, which I found, like, very, like, very
enduring and, like, really, really appreciate it. But no, I think, you know, I think something
I've been realizing is we, most of us live in a state of, like, I'm just trying to kind of figure
it out and keep it together. And the only thing that is different between us is people's
willingness to be honest about that, the degree to which they can admit to, actually I'm just
like scrabbling around trying to keep the pieces together versus, oh yeah, I know everything's
amazing and everything's incredible and I'm having the best day ever and aren't you? And so I do
love the people who are just willing to be like, yeah, it's not going so well today. I'm like, great,
amazing what a good starting point like I don't know failure as a starting point feels like
I feel like attempting things is so compelling and of course success is wonderful but I love to
see people who are like I'm really bad at this but I'm going to try like I love you that's
everything to me that seems to be becoming harder and harder now like that desire to
attempt something that you might not be good at because it's exposed or because everyone will see
it or because everyone will hear about it, talking about attempting things. I mean, you're currently
studying, right? You're learning. Yes. Yes. Well, two things I want to say there is I think in a way
I was sort of, I mean, I'm someone who's always cared about vulnerability and authenticity,
but I think I was also forced into it to a degree that that maybe even I wasn't ready for
and that like I just started so young that like I had to learn in public. I had to make mistakes in
public and say, oh, okay, now I've learned this. And I had to be willing to go back and be like,
hmm, like there were some gaps here. And here's what I know now. And I think people's, I agree with you.
I think it's becoming increasingly difficult to learn in public and continuing to learn.
I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why I have gone back to school and why I continue to do it is
because I want to make sure that I have things to say that are worth saying.
And I think you can only do that if you take a minute sometimes
and listen to some people who aren't you,
you know, not just the sound of my own, my own wonderful voice.
So, yeah, it's been, it's been great.
And I think also I needed to, I wanted to be inspired.
I think being around, my favorite piece has been being around young people
who still believe that the world is malleable and things are changeable
and that like anything can be done is such important energy.
There's so much dystopian fiction at the moment and dystopian movies.
It's all dark.
It's so dark.
And I'm just like, what happened to thinking about the utopia?
What happened to like planning for the best case scenario?
Like where did we lose?
Yeah, vision, excitement.
imagination possibilities so I think it's been yeah it's been wonderful to be around young people
and just to sit there and listen yeah yeah do you ever I mean you clearly read so much do you have
to take yourself away to do it in order to be able to do it do you have to cordon off time like
how are you still managing to study and learn because that seems like it's important to you yeah you
reminded me as you were talking of one of my spiritual teachers my monk teacher who always said to me
if you want to move three steps forward, you have to go three steps deep first.
Whoa.
And what I found often in my life is I'm trying to go four steps forward, and I haven't yet
gone four steps deep.
And so it's almost like, I mean, this is probably a terrible analogy, but maybe I'm thinking
of the movie, the substance.
I don't know if you watched it.
I didn't see it.
Okay, fine.
Okay, terrible.
Let's, let's move.
No, no, no.
No, no, let's forget about it.
But it's that idea of like every extra step you take when you haven't learned and you
haven't experimented and you haven't attempted is taking away from your ability to move
forward. And sometimes I think when we feel stuck or when we think things are not moving or they're
not progressing, we may be assigned to say, well, pause and go deeper for a second or pause and
go inward for a second. And so to me, hearing that from you, I find that, and I'm, I definitely
fail at this all the time. There are so many times I'm trying to push more forward than I've gone
deep. And so whenever I noticed there myself and I noticed that I'm just kind of trying everything
and nothing is working, it's actually just the universe and self saying to me, go read, go study.
And so I've found that I've had to really carve out time to make time to do what I love,
which is to read and study. But I found that I'm someone who doesn't love 30 minutes a day.
I'm not that kind of a reader. I'm someone who needs to read for three or four hours, if not more.
And so I found that carving out deep immersive time is more important to me than this kind of mechanical 30, 40 minutes a day, which is great for you if that works for you as a habit. It doesn't for me because I'm a bit of an extremist. And I just need to spend a whole weekend reading as opposed to, you know, I don't need to read every day. So I'll try and I try once a month on a weekend to just absorb into a subject that I love. And I'll take a course. I'll go to a class. I'll watch a TED talk online.
I'll read as many books as I can and I try and immerse myself that way.
What's your learning style?
I'm the same as you.
And actually, someone who I really respect and ask for advice for often,
and I ask for feedback on myself, he said to me, Emma,
I think if you did 90% of what you wanted to do at 50% of the speed,
you would get so much more, like life would be so much better.
and I was like wow
50% of the speed
and only 90% of what I want to do
and he was like I think that's the minimum
to be honest and I was like wow
but I think
yeah what you said resonates
I think I often have to remind myself
that it's not about
speedily getting somewhere
it's just not the point
things are supposed to happen
with a certain timing
and so
yeah
resonates and to your point
I cannot just sit for 30 minutes and look at something.
I need kind of like a week on holiday
and then I'll start to deeply get into something.
And I need quiet and I hyper-focus.
And I, that's when I, you know, I love it.
But I can't do little itty, bitty bits.
Yeah.
It drives me nuts.
It just doesn't work for me.
It doesn't work for me.
It doesn't work for me.
You said that you felt that you had to learn in public.
Yes.
And then you made mistakes.
Like what were mistakes that felt like mistakes?
then that made you feel like, oh gosh, I made that mistake in public, but I was 10 years old
or whatever it was. And now you look back and you think, oh, you know, I was able to process it.
Yeah. I think the big one was feminism and intersectional feminism. And frankly, it just
like wasn't taught. You know, I had to really seek out. And I'm really grateful, actually,
that I was, in many ways, quite lovingly called in as opposed to, I mean, some of it was not,
but I think that was definitely a moment where I had to say, okay, I'm talking about something
really big and important, and it's actually really important to sit this in some context,
which I have not done. And I think that was a big moment. I think it was more, there was an omission
that was there was things that were missing as opposed to I had said something wrong.
I just needed to fill in more gaps.
And so that was when I started or that was actually in the middle.
I had a feminist book club called Ard Shad Shelf.
And so that was part of those conversations.
But it was a good moment for me to learn that feeling uncomfortable sometimes is good.
I think we have an alarm system that goes off, which is like, I'm uncomfortable, this feels uncomfortable, so something bad must be happening and I must leave as soon as possible.
And actually, I think that was when I started to learn, oh, actually, me being uncomfortable in a space might be a good sign because it might mean I'm about to learn something.
And I want to attribute this, that was Mara I, Larasai, who helped me understand that and was a very, very valuable teaching.
So now when I'm in a space and listening to things and I feel uncomfortable, I don't think it means I need to bolt or something bad's happening.
Yeah.
Maybe something really good is about to happen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I feel like that goes back to what we started with, this idea of attempting means discomfort.
Yeah, it does.
And attempting means incomplete.
Yeah.
And I love that point you made that actually, whenever we're sharing anything, it's not that it's not true.
It's that it's not complete.
Yes.
And mostly when we see people say things or share ideas, it's very rare to have anyone ever share a complete idea because that means they would have had to think about it from every single vantage point, which is not even humanly possible.
It's not possible.
And I think Adrian Marie Brown, I don't know if you've ever had, she wrote an amazing book, which is one of her more recent ones, which is called Loving Corrections.
and she speaks to kind of exactly this, which is there's kind of this like ire that we see online
when people don't attribute something perfectly to someone else or they're missing something
and it's like, isn't the whole point of this that we're in conversation?
And if it's the right person, you can see that a good intention is there, then maybe we can
kind of do it in a way that doesn't need to be I mean obviously there's there's important time
and place for holding people accountable um but maybe I don't know attributing like great we're all
going to help each other kind of pad this out fill this out yeah yeah yeah it's it's a hard
I think that's the hard part it's like how do you differentiate between holding someone accountable
and giving them grace and that's a really interesting discussion in and of it
and I don't think I have the answer or know exactly what it is, but I feel like that's a thought
exercise as humans that if we were to do, it would actually, I don't know, what's your take?
Maybe the grace is attributing good intention and the accountability is the courage it takes
to actually say something to someone because it's such a scary thing to do and it often
requires a lot of emotional labor. And I find this a lot as a woman, especially as a woman
who's dating, that like, I will just be like, is it worth me explaining? Is it worth me explaining
this thing? Or should I just not take the time to do this? Because sometimes I will really,
I care about doing it kindly and compassionately. And it's very rare for me to attribute bad intent to
anyone. But, you know, sometimes it does fall on deaf ears. And you're like, that text message
took me like 40 minutes like to word perfectly or that voice note or whatever. And you're like,
is this making a difference? Like, am I getting through to any, is transformative justice real?
Like, is this, is this label worth it? But I think I don't have a perfect answer. I'm not,
I haven't lived through enough of it to know. I guess I've just reached a point where it's like,
Like, I'd rather, I'd rather die trying.
I'd rather die having tried.
And maybe some small piece of it, even if it's not now, even if it's at some future point, like something I've said just like goes, oh, something.
At the back of my mind here, someone says something to me.
Then, you know, maybe it's worth it.
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Hi everyone, it's Janae, aka Cheekies, from Cheekies and Chill podcast.
And I'm launching an all new mini podcast series called Sincerely Jeannay.
Sure, I'm a singer, author, businesswoman, and podcaster.
But at the end of the day, I am human.
And that's why I'm sharing my ups and doubts with you guys.
Hi, guys.
I was sitting here recording episodes of Dear Cheekies and Cheekies and Chill.
And I just had to take a time out and purge my thoughts and feelings.
here on Sincerely Jeannay
because I've been so emotional lately, you guys.
Whether I'm in my feels,
I've just had a breakthrough with my therapist,
or I've just had a really deep conversation with my siblings,
or I'm in glam getting ready for an award show.
I'm sharing my most intimate thoughts with you on the podcast.
You guys know I always keep it real with you guys,
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Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the IHeart Radio app,
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when you think about little emma
what was a childhood memory that you have a core memory that you have
that you feel has defined who you are today somewhat
I think I won't share the specific memory because it's so personal
but I think I've always felt other people's pain very intensely
until maybe recently I did not know how to give myself grace and navigate seeing my sensitivity as a strength
and knowing that it's like my gift but it also means I have to care for it in specific
ways when you are given gifts there's often kind of have to compensate in some other ways
and in the same way that like my position in life and fame has given me this extraordinary
power it's also given me a lot of responsibility and these things often have these kind of
I don't know when or why it started but I think I always whoever it was that was
suffering in the room, I was always the most aware of them. And I think that has formed a lot
of why I could act. It was almost like I was kind of sucking all of this in. And then I needed
to let it out somewhere or unleash it somewhere. And I remember when my parents saw me on stage
for the first time afterwards, they were just like, where did that come from? You don't have any
of these experiences. I recorded a song for my 12th birthday. My mom bought me a day in a recording
studio. And I sing Natalie and Bruelly is torn like I've had my heartbroken 50,000 times.
You know, like I've been married and divorced and whatever. And I'm 12, but I've never had a boyfriend
and I don't know anything about love. Have you ever thought about where it came from?
I would imagine, I can't say for sure. I would imagine that my
family structure has not been a traditional family structure. And that feeling of knowing
that I'm from a situation where we just don't quite fit the kind of nuclear family mold.
And I think coming back from France and trying to figure out how to sort of integrate
and being the eldest and having my younger brother and having my mom and like trying
to sort of be some sort of glue or holding together for everyone's feelings.
I'm pretty sure that's probably where it started.
Yeah.
And then I guess just being aware of other people who might feel the way I did,
which is like who else in here doesn't feel like they quite fit.
I've always found that it took me a while to recognize,
but when I did, it was so helpful that a lot of what I do today is because I mean,
mediated my parents' marriage growing up.
Yeah.
And so I developed all these skills of listening and empathy and grace and compassion because
I was doing it for two people that I loved.
Yes.
And I see it as a strength.
And yes, it comes with certain things, for sure.
It comes, you're absolutely right.
But at the same time, I've always seen it as a strength.
Yes.
And it's something that has served me well in my marriage.
It's served me well in my relationships.
And at the same time, it has certain consequences that,
that make you different or make you process things differently.
And so, and I remember one thing you shared with me that I was reading it,
you said I used to spend my weekdays with mom and my weekends with dad.
Yeah.
And you said it almost felt like you were changing costume sometimes.
Yes.
And they were all like this two lives kind of thing.
Yes, yes.
And I feel that's so relatable.
I feel like so many people can relate to that, whether their family was more traditional or wasn't,
I think every child has had this feeling of not.
fitting in quite and not knowing which life they're meant to lead.
Yes.
And that feels like it's kind of played into yours.
Yes, for sure.
I think it's also why I've had to really navigate my relationship towards art and acting
because I'm pretty sure that I was using acting as a way of escaping how painful my parents,
like it wasn't just the divorce, it was just like the continuing situation of,
living between two different houses and two different lives and two different sets of values.
And as a child, like, being aware of like, hmm, we don't quite have the support we need here for this.
Like, this is not quite, we're not quite, like, and I think it does.
It makes you, it made me a slightly serious child because I was like had that consciousness.
And then when I would go and spend the weekend with my dad, it was like a very different set of rules, very different situation.
And so you do, you kind of like, and I think everyone can relate to this to an extent that it's not that you are wanting to become different people, but it's you, there are different expectations of you in different places that you understand that you need to fill.
and so I think some of that split then became I was like okay wow you know my parents have very
different views on different things and the hard part of that was that no one gave me any easy
answers it meant I had to form all of my own opinions myself because there was no consensus
and it made me a critical thinker for sure because and so that was amazing and also really like
gosh, okay, I need to
decide what I think is important in life
and what my opinions are. No one's handing me this.
Yeah, maybe it also made me aware
of not wanting to be so split as well
and why it's been important to me
to try to remain whole
in all the different circumstances of my life
and ask myself questions about how I can do that best
because I think I experienced as a child
that the split is painful, like if you're living a reality one way, but presenting something
else, those are the moments when you can really feel torn apart. And I recognize that. And I didn't
want that to be my life. I didn't want pretend to be my real life. Yeah, I mean, that's so,
I can so relate to you personally on the idea of not having a blueprint and having to create my own
and how often when you don't have a blueprint you feel you have two choices and that's where
you feel torn whereas when you look at it as a whole and go okay well now I get to craft
my own narrative from this and I may take a few pieces from here and a few pieces from here
and I'm going to form my own puzzle but I don't have to choose a path it's it's really beautiful
when you do it, but it's really hard in the beginning because it just feels like there are two
parts. And I wanted to talk about how much that's impacted, you know, your work. And you said there,
you said that one thing you mentioned that really stood out to me was you felt that acting
was in some way escaping that kind of, which version do I have to be? And I think so much of what
we do for work or so much of what we pursue as humans is based on something we're trying to build,
create, maybe escape from, maybe to reveal something. And I think we haven't often looked at
work that way. Like, sometimes we choose a career because we know it will make our parents
happy. And so we're living a pattern. Or sometimes you choose something because it breaks the
pattern that you were growing up in. And it's fascinating to me to look at that. And for you,
you were acting in school plays since you were a young girl. And was acting always something
you were going to do? Or did it, do you feel like it was this cross-section of what was happening
in your personal life that actually made that feel like the direction you would choose.
I think it's so interesting that you said those words reveal and escape,
that they're kind of the same thing because I think that it all started with a poem.
I did a poetry competition when I was nine called the Daisy Pratt poetry competition.
And I'm actually naturally quite a shy person.
And so actually for me to stand up in front of people feels,
like an out-of-body experience. There's so much adrenaline coursing through my veins that it does
feel like a moment outside of time. And I remember the exhilaration of living the kind of
of ups and downs of this poem. And maybe because there wasn't space to have conversations
or express myself at that time in the way that I needed to.
I did it through performance and I also did it as a way of getting to feel free
for a moment of what I was, like the discomfort of that time of not quite knowing who I was
or how to be in the world.
And as I've become more healed and whole and more complex,
comfortable being myself, it's been interesting to ask myself, do you still need acting? Do you still
need to act? Like, why, what are you doing that for? And like the kind of, it used to feel like
almost like a compulsion that I needed to do it. And what's really interesting now is I don't
feel quite that kind of urgency of needing to do it. And I wonder if it's because actually
I have spaces where I can now take some of those feelings
and talk about some of the things
I don't think I had space to voice
without doing it on camera in front of thousands of people.
Yeah, which is scary in its own way, right?
Yeah.
It's easy to think, oh, that makes sense.
But then it's like, well, no, it's really challenging
to do that second part.
Yeah.
even if it makes sense rationally or logically.
And was that what, in 2019, when you kind of pulled away,
was your reason I want to heal and work on myself?
Or was it actually, I don't feel a compulsion anymore?
Like, was that the inflection point of doing some self-work?
Or was that the inflection point of, I need to pause?
I realized I was drawing on painful stuff in my life
that I was actually healing.
And I didn't want to keep revisiting.
in order to do some of the more intense, scarier, sadder things that I had to do.
I realized, I remember, by Beth's deathbed, by her grave side when we shot those films,
like normally there are like these painful memories that I would use for those moments.
And I realized, I was like, I don't know if this is super great for me, actually, to keep,
to keep revisiting these, or if I want to use these as my tools.
And I don't think that means I'll never come back to acting.
I think it just meant I was like, hmm, I wonder if there's a different way to do this.
I think the second thing was, to be really honest, I was coming to those sets with an expectation
that I think I had developed on Harry Potter, which was that the people I worked with were
were going to be my family, and that we were going to be lifelong friends. I came to work
looking for friendship. And that was a very painful experience for me outside of Harry Potter
and in Hollywood, like, bone-breakingly painful. Because most people don't come to those
environments looking for friendships, they're looking for, this is my chance, this is my role,
this is what I want out of it
I'm focused
this is my job
this is my career
like let's go
and I was not of that mindset
and so I found
I found the rejection
really painful
the friendship rejection yeah
yeah of like I was like
I think it's so unusual
to make a set of films
for 12 years
and we were a community
like we we really were and so I took that as an expectation into my into my other workplaces
and I just got my I just got my ass kicked I really did was it competition was it envy was it just
hierarchy was it I think it was a combination it was a Molotov cocktail of all of the above as we
mentioned earlier I'm just not thick skinned maybe I just wasn't built for those kinds of
highly competitive environments, it, yeah, it broke me. Yeah. But in a way, I'm proud that it did,
because I guess that means I have something left to break. I have a heart left to break.
So it was a hard learning, but I think there's something that...
I'm proud of in a way that there were certain things I couldn't withstand.
I'd much rather keep my humanity.
I think there might be...
I'm managing to, like, keep the tears inside.
There is a tissue.
But that's really kind.
Thank you.
No, but I really appreciate you saying that.
And I mean, it's so powerful to hear how you've been.
processed it like just what you added there because when I saw your voice change and just when you
were expressing it and and it hit me as you said it and I felt it and then the way you reflected on
it kind of helped that feeling rise really beautifully because what you said is so true that if you
were broken by a frequency of envy and competition and whatever else it was that's only proof
that you were vibrating in a way that didn't want to be pulled down into that.
And it's so interesting, though, how when we break to those sorts of emotions and ideas,
we feel we're the weak one.
Yeah.
When it's completely the opposite.
That was the most painful thing was I thought I beat myself up for years afterwards,
really thinking, like, punishing myself.
saying you couldn't hack it, you weren't strong enough.
And yeah, what bliss and what peace, I think, to understand that
to have come out on top would have been a greater failure, I think,
in terms of who I actually care about being.
Yeah, it's almost like if you abandoned yourself in that moment in order to
align with that new way of thinking yeah you'd probably beat yourself up more long term and have a
much part of time yes yes i think so i don't know i've just got to this place where it's just
if it costs me any part of my piece it's just too expensive and of course like there's opportunities
that i think wow like that would be amazing and i care deeply about
about my work, but I think it's just,
I think I just used to completely sacrifice myself
for whatever the thing was I was trying to achieve.
And that could be a grade, it could be a movie,
it could be promoting, I just was obsessed with excellence
and doing everything, giving my all to everything
and doing it to the best of my ability.
And unless you have the right people
around you that can hold that kind of level of commitment, you're going to get smashed up.
You're just going to get crushed. And so I think now it's just a case of me being like,
okay, I know that for me to do anything, I have to have people in the room that care about me
more than whatever the product is, or whatever the final product is. And if that isn't the case,
I cannot be there because I'm just someone who like gives.
it all is how I'm built and I think understanding that makeup of myself and not punishing myself
for that but just knowing it needs certain kinds of conditions is how I've come to hopefully
I'll keep doing it forever and probably every day but accepting myself yeah it seems like I've
spoken to so many and we were talking about this last week when we were speaking on the phone
that I've worked with so many young people, musicians who've all been told, like, all right,
if you don't do this over the next 12 months, you're not going to make it.
Or like, if you don't do this right now, if you don't say yes to this song or this movie,
it's like you might as well wave it goodbye.
You're never going to get the Oscar or the whatever it may be or the Grammy or whatever
it is.
And I can't imagine being a young person.
Like, I'm 37 now and you process ideas like that differently.
Yeah.
If you're in your teens or even 20s, and maybe even 30s, but you process those statements
with so much gravitas, especially when it's someone of influence and power saying it to you.
Yeah.
It feels like being surrounded by people who really believe in you and your longevity and your art
versus, but that's hard to find.
It is.
It's hard to find.
And, you know, I had a wonderful team.
Like I really did. I think it's just like understanding that no one at the end of the day is going to be in the room like when you're actually doing the thing. You have to carry that moment and you have to carry that pressure. Also making films the hours on them are so demanding that to have your own life alongside that to have that balance is almost impossible. It's so all or nothing. It's so all encompassing, especially if you're in a
lead role, you kind of go through these, you know, working six days a week, 14 to 16
hour days, and then you're just kind of dropped off at the end of it and maybe you'll have a
two or three month gap and then there's just kind of like nothing. And so you're like riding
this like incredible peak of like adrenaline and cortisol and then you just get like dropped
off the edge. And then you're like, okay, wait, now I have to be a functioning human again
and I have to like figure out how to be a person in the real world.
And I think some of those extremes then force an actor to either decide, well, I'm going to back to back it.
So I'm going to basically go from one movie to the next and that's going to be my full life.
Or you have to navigate these huge impacts on your nervous system that you need a system and a support system to help you navigate.
And I think it's why addiction and mental illness in my profession and in a lot of high
stress, high profile professions is so commonplace because you're trying to balance out
these enormous chemical ups and downs.
Yeah. Talk to people about why. Because I think from the outside, when someone sees a red carpet
or when someone sees in a van, it looks really glamorous.
Like, until I ever attended anything and, you know, I always looked at it as like,
oh my gosh, it's so glamorous and everyone's there and everyone must be friends and everyone
must know each other because they all, you know, but then you're not saying that and neither
is, and anytime I've ever been on a red carpet, everyone's anxious and everyone's nervous
and that's the real experience.
And people are almost waiting to leave.
Yes.
And some people will do the red carpet and leave immediately.
But what's going on there?
Walk us through, like, for people who may not.
I think the first step is to just understand,
even though you're wearing an incredibly glamorous dress
and you're there to do something exciting,
I don't think there's anything that can make it not weird
that people are screaming at the top of their lungs.
Like, it just, everything in your body says something's wrong.
Like, people are screaming, something's wrong.
But then you have to try to pretend
as though this is all normal and you're unfazed.
So you have like two things going on.
One, you're like navigating this like sensory overload that's like telling you,
oh my God, something is really wrong.
You're a pose telling you where to look, telling you.
Yeah, so you're trying to navigate, okay, something feels wrong,
but I need to also simultaneously make it seem as though I am the most graceful
and the most calm I've ever been in my whole life.
and I need to like pose for this person and there's 50 different cameras and I need to make sure
that I look perfectly into each and every one and I probably will have had four different notes
from the stylist about how I'm supposed to stand and what I need to do for the dress and then I've got
like 25 different talking points from the movie of like what I need to get across and also
avoid saying or talking about and so you're like you need to be thinking about that and
the juggles crazy and then I think everyone is in this like kind of jumped up state and so like
trying to have a normal conversation with anyone is basically impossible because you feel like an
insane person and so these are not environments in which you like have a nice chat with someone
really I mean maybe if you're really lucky and you've worked with someone for a long time and you've
established some trust but I think that was the other thing that was like really really
difficult about movies and what, like, I kind of laugh at, well, not in a mean way, but, like,
you know, you always get asked when you're, like, promoting these big films, like, so do you guys
hang out on set? And, like, do you guys hang out? And, like, are you all friends? And everyone sort of,
like, nods enthusiastically. But the truth is no one has seen each other outside of work,
like, very, very, very rarely. Mostly because the schedule is insane. Everyone's so tired that
when they get any time off, you're going straight back to your hotel room to try to, like, claw in any
piece of rest that you possibly can. And, like, I don't know. Like, friendships require time and
trust and presence. And those things, like, very rarely come about. They can and they, like,
do occasionally, but it's more of a, more of a, you know, solar eclipse than an everyday situation.
So, yeah, but you have to pretend. I think that's the part that starts to feel.
icky after a while is like you you have to pretend that you're all best friends and what's so sad and
I know this isn't just the case from me but like I think people wish they were yeah I think we wish
we did have those real connections and we did have that real support and so having to pretend that
something exists that you actually really want but don't have is like it's like pretty grainy in
the wound you know it's like it's pretty like tough pill to swallow to have to
act out something that you wish were real but isn't real. And I think that's the part that
starts to kind of, yeah, I can only speak for myself, but those are definitely the moments who
have been like, this feels dark. Like, anyone else, like, this feels dark. And there's such
a real reminder that it still work. And it's almost like asking anyone who works at any company
and saying, hey, do you hang out with your team after work every night? And the answer is,
Probably no. Yeah, no, everyone's go home to their family. And maybe you've got a couple of, of course,
you've got a couple of friends at work. And it's wonderful if you have a friend at work that you
work out with or see after hours, but you're not hanging out as the whole crew. It's, it's very
unlikely. 100%. And it is that reality check of, no, but this is also just work. And their character
stories are not their personal stories. And it doesn't. And that's what I wanted to go back. You mentioned
there, you talked about how Harry Potter had a family feel. And,
I wanted to ask you, like, how did that come about in the first?
Like, what was, where did the auditions come from?
Like, how did that become a part of your life?
Yes.
So, I did not go to a performing arts school.
I'd never done anything.
I never acted professionally.
But they came, they, they did like a basically countrywide search to find Harry
Hermione and Ron.
And so they asked my school if they wanted to submit any students who love drama.
who wanted to audition.
And so I was one of, I think, about 12 students
that was asked if I wanted to audition.
I don't know.
It was weird.
I had this weird, weighted, fated sense of destiny
pretty much from the moment that they said,
they mentioned the audition.
I remember I brought, I think,
maybe like seven different beanie babies with me along
and like all these different like lucky talismans.
And I loved the world and the book so much.
My dad had been reading them to me before bed
when I would spend the weekends with him and on long car journeys.
We'd often drive back and forwards to France.
And that's how the time would be passed.
And so I was just like loved the world, loved Hermione.
And for me it wasn't so much about acting so much as it was that like I just,
the books meant so much to me personally.
Did you feel like it was destiny for you?
Or did it feel like, did you always feel like it was going to be this?
I always...
Obviously the books were already, you know.
I always felt like Hermione was...
I knew I was never auditioning for anything else.
Like, I knew it was her.
I don't know.
I don't know how to explain it.
Something felt right about it.
And my, yeah, my poor person.
parents because if I hadn't have got it, I think they knew her crush her. I ended up doing
nine auditions over a period of over a year and a half, which for a nine-year-old is a massive
commitment. But I was, I loved her. I loved it. I really did. What do you wish now that you
would have known before you became Hermione? I did a pretty good job. And I'm
Actually, I give my mother specifically credit for this.
She was like a warrior for my normalcy and for me having an ordinary life and going to school.
And no one wanted that.
I mean, it would have been considerably easier if I had not continued going to school.
But she, wow.
Like, I will forever be in her debt.
She somehow knew that me feeling part of the ordinary world and feeling I had a place in it
and that I belonged outside of those films was going to be crucial.
Wow, that's really incredible.
It was because she basically didn't have anyone on her team.
She was kind of on her own on that one.
And she fought tooth and nail.
she was like on the phone for hours saying she has to sit her exams she has to go back like
she needs to be here she she needs to have some parts of a normal childhood and yeah forever in her
that's so special to have had that and have those yeah to have a parent who yeah see like
and you can't see anything for yourself you're yeah no and to be honest I didn't really I didn't
really get it.
If I'm going to be honest, I was like, okay, like, I guess it's important.
Like, I'm not, you know, I like, I didn't really get it.
So I think, yeah, she was amazing.
Emma Watson and
Hermione and the characters
that then followed
start to get blurred and intertwined
because that expectation
that comes with
I remember this
and I share it because
to give it to context to people
I was walking down the road
with one of my friends
who's an actor who gets recognized
a hundred times for every one time
I get recognized
so just to put in context
and so if we're walking down
like this person gets stopped 100 times for pictures
and then I'll get stopped once.
And it was really beautiful because we spent a day together
and that person had been stopped 100 times
and maybe I'd been stopped a couple of times.
And then they said something to me.
They said, Jay, you're really lucky.
And I said, what do you mean?
And I thought they were going to say because I'm anonymous to some degree.
But they did it.
He said to me, he goes, Jay, you're really lucky because he goes,
when people stop me, they stop me for who I play to be.
And when they stop you, they stop you, they stop you.
who you are and it was really encouraging words from someone that I respect a lot and I was like wow
like I never thought about it like that I just I just it hadn't hit me yeah how different it was
and because I think you just see fame or success or whatever is this one big bubble of stuff
especially when you're not that close to or you don't know too much about it and it was that
conversation that made me even be even more personal with everyone that I ever spoke to because
they'd always have a personal story and that's not to say that isn't true for music and for
acting and of course there is. I don't want to take away from it. No, no. And I'm not saying that
as a egotistical statement. I'm saying it as like how hard it is for an individual to go through
that. Yes. And to be disassociated from themselves. Yes. Because that role could be a part of you.
It could be an expression of you. It was a part of your life at a certain period of time. But of course,
isn't you. Yes. But does that make any sense? I remember when I gave my UN speech about
he for she and about feminism and women's rights, and people started stopping me because of things
that I had come from me and that I'd said, it felt like a very significant transition for me
because for the first time I felt like I could look someone in the eye and receive and accept
something that they were saying because I felt like it actually had something to do with me
and I wasn't just kind of a like a custodian of something sacred, which I did take very seriously
and I still do, but it had been a direct transmission from me. And I think that's why writing
has become so important to me is because it's a way that I can say things directly and
that feels really meaningful. Yeah, I love the word you just used there of the difference
between being a custodian and, you know, direct transmission, you said. And that's such an
interesting way to think about it. And I think each and every one of us don't want to be known as a
lawyer or an accountant or a doctor or a, like, yes, that's a part of us. And it's a role we play in
society. And it, of course, brings significance and value and worth and all of these wonderful
things. But I think everyone wants to be something beyond that. And no one wants to be that in their
home and no one wants to be that with their friends and no one no one and and me included by the way it's
like I I try and my one of my friends is a is a well-known stand-up comic we always joke about how
he hates to be asked to tell jokes on command and and I try with my friends to not say smart
I try not to say thoughtful revelatory things because with my friends I just want to be
I don't want to have to coach someone's marriage or solve their thing I don't want to do
that. Like, I just want to be. And so even for someone who is doing direct transmission a lot more
of the time, even then there's a feeling of, well, I don't want to say anything profound in this
conversation. I need to put this down. Yeah, I need to put the one down, right?
Totally. Godly, yes, yeah. I think a big piece of me, like, understanding again, like, why I
needed to take a minute is that, like, even being the person who was promoting the work became a kind of
role. Like Emma Watson became this like avatar, this person that I identified with, but also
kind of didn't. She'd become reproduced so many times over and kind of had become so loaded
by all of this different stuff that I, she almost felt too heavy to carry. Like I kind of was
like, I don't even know if I can, if I can be that bitch anymore. Like I, you know, I went on a date
like two years ago and like it was the best confession ever but i was like messaging this person
they were like emma and he was like can i just say something like emma watson makes me anxious
and i was like emma watson makes me anxious too that's so good we are on the same page like
i get it like i i can't even be her i don't know how to be her live up to to what i look like
on the cover of a magazine i don't look like that i i can't i don't know i don't know i don't
even know how to touch what that person's become. That was kind of a funny realization at some
point where it's like, I don't need to step off this thing because I just, once you've, I don't know,
there's such a glamorization that comes hand in hand with being a public famous person, especially
if you're a woman. Like, I feel, I feel so envious of my male co-stars who can just put on a
t-shirt and show up without like this like whole rigmarole of kind of becoming acceptable enough
to be on camera and oh like kudos to pamela anders recently and just like doing the thing because
it's like the amount of courage it will have taken to do that like i cannot even begin to express to you
it's wild the the expectations are insane it's impossible
So...
You're shot on vacation, private space.
Yeah, yeah.
Just the beauty expectations are so difficult to reach.
And the bar gets raised all the time.
So it's like you're on this constantly like, I don't know, it's like a some sort of like Survivors Island game show beauty nightmare where, you know, I don't know, it's, it's nuts.
So I, yeah, I think part of also not feeling like Emma Watson is just like the whole like glam squad culture of it all is, it's intense.
Yeah.
It's so fascinating because there's almost like this, this learning of becoming, you know, becoming Emma Watson, becoming, you know, being all the roles you play.
And then it almost feels like what you're saying is there was a moment you wanted to step off.
unlearn what that meant.
Totally.
But that seems really hard.
Yes.
Because learning it was hard enough and then to unlearn it when it's linked to your work,
your finances, your worth, your friendship, community, connection, all of the,
where you live.
How do you even begin to unlearn being Emma Watson?
It's a knotted ball.
You have to sort of unravel very carefully.
and carefully that's it yeah yeah i think it's not like a wrecking ball like you're not just i mean
some things had to be done like the wrecking ball honestly and then some parts of it were like a much
slower more gentle teasing out but i mean i don't know if you find this but i imagine that a lot
of your friendships are made through the podcast and made through your work and there's kind of this
like non-separation between your home and your family and your relationship and the podcast
but tied into that there's also like the very real some people will be wanting you to
reference their new book or like promote something for them or whatever and like navigating that
so many of these threads are entwined does it ever start to feel like wow this is a lot
people ask me all the time do you ever wonder why people want to why people want to
hang out with you or be your friend or whatever and does that ever get complicated for you?
I think because my direct transmission is so clear that if anyone in the industry wants to
connect, there's usually quite a distinct journey that they're on that mine can support or
help with as a friend or in a more formal capacity and that I deeply enjoy and I'm
grateful for because people are not inviting me out to crazy parties and I'm happy.
They're not. Yeah, they're not. Yeah, they don't think I'm fun enough. I just felt a clip
of the other day of Austin Butler saying he's he's never been invited to a bachelor party
before. I couldn't believe it. But that kind of feeling like I don't get invited to crazy
parties and I'm grateful for that. I don't that's not really a part of my life. Right.
unless it's a spiritual party and then I'm all game and uh but but there isn't that and so
sometimes I think it's a good my direct transmission is a good protective mechanism because I
don't really get asked to come to things but then at the same time it takes me to get to know
someone deeply like I just traveled with a friend uh to Greece and we played and I don't think
they were anticipating this but we played three nights of poker from midnight to 7 a.m and it was
amazing and I loved it and I had the best time and I don't think they expected me to do that
they expect me to get to bed early but I was on vacation and I was like I'm game yeah exactly and I'm
one so I was like you know I'll take it and I'm very competitive in that way and I enjoy it and so
I think what it is for me is I think there's a big thing for me has been from I grew up as part
of a big community in London yeah and a big spiritual community that I became a part of when I was
young. And I think that what I've found is it's very difficult to discern for people externally
and even for people in that community as to how close they were to me. Right. And so there are
some people that assume that because we sat in a class together and there were 200 people in the
class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now that their opinion on me or that their relationship with me
is close, when in actuality I've never had a one-to-one conversation with that person. And so now
their opinion matters to the outside world. It matters to the media. It matters to
whatever. But I actually don't know that person and they don't really know me. It's just so that we
went to the same congregation in the same year, which has lots, thousands of people in it. And so I struggle
with that. And then I also struggle with people coming up to him and saying, oh, Jay, I've known you for 20
years and, you know, like from back in the day of the temple. But I'm like, we didn't. Like,
we didn't ever have an, like, a conversation. And I still have all my best friends from that
community that are still my closest friends. And they also feel the same. And they also feel the same.
way because they see it. And so I think I find that very difficult is hard to navigate
because it's not that I don't have positive feelings towards people or the community or anything.
I do. But I struggle with people feeling they know me when they never did. But they've almost
created a story within their mind that they really knew me well. And because it was a big community,
this isn't a group of school friends or something, which I'm still really close with. It's more
this expanded community, which you were just visible in, not even audible or if that makes any
sense. No, that makes perfect sense. I think, yeah, being part of a larger community, it would
be tricky to navigate with, yeah, with the kind of, I guess, like, being a famous person
in essence is like lots of people can project lots of things onto you. And like, if they had
some level of contact with you, it makes those kinds of projections a lot easier. And then you're
like oh wow we're in a completely different like your experience of this is so different from mine
yeah yeah and and i mean yours is like a million extra and you know i can't imagine i can't i can't
imagine i can't imagine how hard dating is like you talked about in some of the journal reflections
that you said me like this idea is just like dating is hard as a 20 year old 30 year old
woman anyway yeah and then to add your life to it yeah to talk to
to me, but you've referenced it a couple of times in conversations you've had. What does it feel
like when you're having a normal conversation and someone goes, wait a minute, your Hermione Granger,
Emma Watson, you know, list goes on, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it does, it does feel like my avatar
enters the room unexpectedly all of a sudden. And then I'm like navigating a completely different
conversation if someone hasn't figured out that it's me yet. And that can feel really
dehumanizing and sometimes quite kind of seeing someone's like behavior like completely switch
and turn and change can be kind of a jarring experience. I think what's nice is at the very
least, like dating for everyone is basically a complete disaster and free for all. So like I feel
like I'm in good company in that sense. But I think it's funny.
occasionally people will apologize to me for the fact they've not seen my films and I will be like
please don't apologize that is bliss to me like music to my ears that like you're not going to
constantly be navigating and me also navigating with you this projection of me or this
Emma Watson avatar person will not be this ghost in the room so um that's happened a few times
where people have been like I'm really sorry and like please don't
choice. I'm so relieved. I'm so incredibly relieved. And then you realised they have the box
that later on. Yeah. No, my God. I hope not. But I mean, I guess like I want people to
appreciate my work, but I think knowing you don't have to navigate that extra like
degree of weirdness is, uh, helpful and relief. How do you help people get to know the real
you at this stage in your life? You know, I wrote this play that I actually sent to you to read,
but I actually read parts of it to people
because I find that trying to explain
sometimes how weird it is to be me
like I almost need AIDS
like it's so difficult to convey
like how weird it is and how surreal sometimes
that I sometimes I should be like
can I just like we do this thing I wrote
because I think it's going to shortcut you somewhere
and so that's actually been incredibly helpful and I'm so glad I went and did this
creative writing masters and I've spent more time writing about my experiences because
sometimes I can't even articulate it to myself like how how are you supposed to explain
something to someone else you can't really even understand for yourself so I think writing
creative writing making art has been the best therapy I've ever done
because it's helped me get clarity and also just be able to laugh at myself and laugh at the
situation. I think one-on-one therapy can be amazing. But like there is a kind of intensity and a
seriousness to that that maybe when you're writing something down and when I wrote the play,
I wrote it for my friends and family and I was able to kind of be more my, bring more of
myself to the picture in a way, which is someone who's like, this is just nuts. I just can't
I can't. Sometimes I just genuinely cannot believe that my life is my life. And I need a place
so I can put that. Yeah. I loved. So just for everyone who's, you know, hearing about the
referencing of this play, Emma wrote a play which helped her closest friends and family understand
her experience of life, basically. Right? Is that a bad description? No, no, it's not a bad
description, but like specifically I wrote the play about me transitioning from basically being
a full-time actress, an activist, to trying to move home and like be a normal student and attend
a normal university as a super famous person. And I, I basically kept a journal of what those
experiences were like and chronicled them for my friends and family for about a year and then
performed it as a one-woman show at the end of the first year and handed that in as my first
year piece of work. And yeah, yeah. Did it get an A? It got a distinction. Oh, amazing. Great.
There we go. I love it. It actually did. Not that that was the point, but it kind of wasn't the point.
But I think the coolest thing was, like, I read it for my roommate, for example, he's been living
for seven years. And he was like, wait, wait, wait, stop, stop, stop, stop, so. He's like,
is this actually how you feel? Like, do you actually feel this?
And I was like, yeah, I wouldn't have written it if I didn't.
And he was like, I had no idea that this was how you felt.
And this is someone I live with.
And so for me, who I perceive myself to be this like massive open book.
And actually I realized I was like, wow, I think I'm doing a good job of bringing the people that I love along with me on what this feels like.
And actually, I'm not saying nearly enough or explaining it in a way where it makes sense.
And so even my parents were just like, couldn't believe it really.
I'm sure they were brought to tears by parts of it.
I mean, I was so moved by it, and I really hope you do one day make it a production in some capacity
because it was so moving and so powerful.
And it was, Emma, honestly, it was what every public figure has ever tried to explain to me
about their experience, yet put so succinctly powerful.
and meaningfully that anyone could relate to it. And I think anyone meaning anyone who's ever felt
misunderstood, loved for what they have and not who they are seen for parts of themselves and not all
of themselves. And I really believe it would be such a service to everyone to share it one day
in however way you decide to because honestly, I was gripped. I was completely captivated.
I couldn't put it down. I feel like I'm going to read it again and again and again.
it's not something that I think you read once. Not only are you a brilliant writer, but it is so
true and honest. And for everyone who's listening and watching, I think the lesson from it for me is
that your therapy could turn into something creative that when you shared that with me,
when we were speaking on the phone, I was so in awe of that, that therapy in one-to-one setting
or in whatever way of healing you believe you, if it turns into something you're speaking,
have to put together to communicate to others, that's the revelation.
Like, the revelation is in that process, not in the listening, telling, sharing, speaking.
That's great and that's a part of it.
But if you can go one step ahead.
Truly, I feel this, like, urgency and, like, desperation to communicate this specific piece,
which is, like, make art about your experiences.
Like, the neurosis of being a writer or anyone making anything is, like, I don't have
anything valuable to say. It's all been said before. This is so self-indulgent. This is so narcissistic. Who
even wants to hear this? This is bad. I thought all of those thoughts probably most days as I wrote
this. But trust me, like whatever you think people know about you or they know about your life
or how you feel about it, they don't. And they need you to write poems, write songs, make pictures,
write plays, and you don't need to be someone with the title of an artist to be able to do that.
You really don't.
And in fact, I have to write on my mirror.
I haven't written on my door.
I am an artist because I don't think anyone feels like they deserve that title.
I've been making films and writing and making art since I was nine years old, and I don't feel like I deserve that title,
and I have to work at it all the time to feel like I have anything that's worthwhile saying.
I really understand the struggle. I really, really do. But there is something about doing it and
like having a physical thing because I think so many of these thoughts and feelings live in our
heads and it's not a great place for them to live. They need to come out somewhere. And once you
can put them somewhere, then you're free. Being understood or feeling like you're understood by
the people around you has got to be the best feeling in the world. And I think it's what we're
looking for when we do so many things, but often that's not the way to find it. And I just,
God, yeah. If I honestly, I want to go to every person in the street and be like, you need to
write a one person show about your life and then perform it for your friends and family. Or like,
you need to like, you know, paint the thing, write the song. Like,
Just do it because it's kind of one of the best, most meaningful things I've done,
is trying to make sense of it all, yeah.
And I love that you did it for your family.
Like, that's the part that proves to me when you say the message of make your art
and, you know, you don't need to be a full-time actor or a director or movie filmmaker.
It's like you actually lived that part.
And that's what I love about it the most is that you didn't make it for a stage or a movie
or a documentary or whatever.
And honestly, first I wrote it for.
myself. I didn't think I would honestly I didn't think I had the guts to read this
aloud to anyone. I thought it was just for me and maybe like two other people and performing
it for my, like I didn't even invite my family until like two days before because I just didn't
think I had the courage. Make art for people you love. Like make beautiful things for people
that you love, just for people that you love. Like that's one. I, I guess like I had the extraordinary
experience of making things for like the world basically from such a young age. And I,
I never made anything that I didn't feel like needed to be shared publicly.
And I remember when I made little women, I mean, that's such an amazing thing about Louise May Alcott, is that really she wrote those stories for her sisters.
And so many people's journeys and paths start because, yeah, out of love, they wrote them for just one person.
There was a certain point I remember in my life where I was like, right, I'm done with university now and now I'm going to just like focus full.
what I should be doing is just focusing full time on being an actress and, you know,
doing all of that. And I had completely missed, actually, that Emma, the academic, Emma
the student, Emma the person that needs to constantly be learning things facilitated my ability
to be a famous person and in Hollywood. And that without her, I actually couldn't do it. I need it.
I need to have both. And that when one gets...
get stripped away. And like, even as I'm, and I explore this in the play as well, it's like,
even as I have returned to some form of normalcy, ordinary life, whatever that looks like
to me now, like, I also can't kill her off completely. You know, my public person, there's
parts of me that, like, still does need those outlets and to do those things too. And I'm
figuring out what those are. But I think that's what's so complicated about being human is,
is it's yes and not either or it's we need we need to be all of ourselves so that we can do
the extraordinary things that we want to do maybe it's about not leaving parts of ourselves
behind like kind of finding a way to keep threading the tapestry of all of it yeah i think that's i
mean you've you've said it so well and i really feel that that's what it's been for me it's
i feel like it's humans we're very good at being like okay this chapter of my life is
And we do it because labelling helps, but it's like you went from being a toddler
or an infant and then you became a teen and then a young adult and then, so we have all
these labels. And it almost feels like we live our life that way. It's like, okay, I was a student
at university, if I went to university, and now I have a job and I'm an employee or an entrepreneur,
whatever it is. And labels are useful, so I'm not going to say they aren't, but what ends up happening
is you start labelling phases of your life, which means now there isn't a yes and. It's an either
or. So it's like, I was an actress. Now I'm going to be an academic. And it's like, well, no, I'm an
academic and an actress and a whatever else. Yeah. And I think that's what it's been for me.
It's like I know that the people that know me best will say, Jay, I love you because we can talk about
spirituality. We can talk about business and we can talk about communication, media, art. And I love you because we can
all those three things in one day.
And I'm like, yes, I feel so seen.
Whereas if someone only said one of those things, I'd feel so limited.
And what I've realized is I'm now at a place where I've given myself permission to be all
of myself, even if others don't give me permission to be all of those things.
Yes.
Because, yeah.
And how amazing to get to that point where I realized for a long time I was pushing for,
I need everyone to understand me and I need them to understand these decisions and I need
them to understand that I'm all of these things. And I'm like, but do you really, Emma? Do you
really need them to get it? Or is it enough that you get it? You see it and understand it. And
you're making it possible and giving yourself permission to do that. And I think once I kind of let go
of like, okay, it matters way more that I accept myself than that I spend so much energy
and time trying to force other people to see these things about me. And then paradoxically,
of course, once you let go, people start getting it, yeah, which is, which is funny.
Emma, how do you, how do you see love today? God, what a great question. Oh, um, how do I see love today?
Oh, okay, I think I have an answer for this. How exciting. I was right there from it. I was like,
shit, I don't need to say. God, I hope I do. Am I that deep? Yeah. Okay. So, um, um, I think I have an answer for this. I'm
I think that, oh, we don't talk about love nearly enough, or I think we need to talk about it so much more because I had such a, not a misunderstanding, but I think I had a very limited understanding of it for a long time, which was that we see in Disney movies and in Hollywood movies this idea that like falling in love, once it sort of happened to you, it's like irreversible, you know, like step into this portal that you can't get out of anymore because you
fallen in love. And actually, I think falling in love might be quite easy to do in some ways.
That's sort of the easy bit. The hard part is finding someone who actually wants to be in a dance
with you and be in some form of partnership with you. And things like, can you argue well? Can you
be, is the conflict that you have generative? And can you make someone else feel safe? Like,
And when I say safe, I don't mean, like, out of physical danger.
I mean, like, can you either respond to a text message quickly enough
that doesn't send the other person into, like, a complete free fall
and or not pelt them with so many that they feel completely overwhelmed and flooded?
And, like, that kind of, like, compatibility and that kind of willingness to be in this, like,
is this okay for you?
Does this feel good to you?
This is how it feels for me.
And there's like that constant back and forth and that constant check-in is like a game of chicken in a way of like, can you find someone who's willing to be as vulnerable as it necessarily requires, I think, to like figure out those micro adjustments until you're sort of in some kind of dance with someone else.
And that is a very different understanding that I've come to of what love is than I had.
I mean, like, loving someone is so much more complex than the projections that we put on someone
or even, like, just lusting or having some small feeling for someone else.
But I just think that we have such a black and white idea about what love is supposed to be.
And I wish I'd understood more before I went into battle.
I do.
I really, really do.
What do you think love is, Jay?
Oh, wow. Oh my gosh, you're flipping this back, Emma.
Yeah. This is a conversation.
I know, I know. I'm joking. I just...
Well, does any of what I've said resonate?
It does, it does. It resonates a lot.
I'm on the right track, Jay.
I need you to tell me.
I think it resonates a lot.
I grew up with a very film, naive, Disney version of what love was.
I love that version of love.
I love the idea that love was this really romantic, really sweet, writing letters every day kind of love.
That's the love I dreamed of and love I thought of as a kid at least.
Yeah.
And then, you know, I think I.
realize that you do all of that with the first person you're with and your teens and you kind of
think it's the real thing but then they're in a mood every night for no reason and you're just
people pleasing and trying to figure out what's going on and you think it's all about making that
person happy and so you mold and you bend and you you know sabotage parts of yourself and I realize
very quickly that that wasn't love and I think what's really interesting about love now is that
marrying my wife who I've been with now for 12 years and married for nine.
Wow. And so it's the longest time I've ever spent with anyone and also the only person I've
been with after I left the monastery. And so there's been a certain chapter of my life that I've been
with her for. And I really feel she's taught me more about love for two reasons. The first is
she doesn't subscribe to any of the movie Disney versions of love. Wow. Oh my God. What education
did she have?
I know.
I know.
I know.
Yeah, literally.
And the other part is that I think she's the only person I've ever loved enough
to be taught by.
Oh, my God.
Which is like a really interesting part of love that I think's missed.
And I feel like love is the humility to feel it's humility on both parts because the other person's
not actively teaching and you're actively receiving.
Yes.
So it's this really strange.
dance between, it's almost like if you're dancing, there has to be humility on both sides
because it's not that one person leads and the other person follows, it's the other person's
kind of like, should we do this? Should we try this? There's an anxiety and a humility and requesting
that. And the other person gets to choose to go with it or not go and say, no, we're going to go
in this direction. And that's a great dance to watch. And I feel like with my wife, she's never
directly taught me but she's challenged me in ways that if other people would have I might have left
oh my god how beautiful and so why am i staying and then you go okay i'm staying because there's love
and so love is the ability to be taught without teaching and learning without feeling like you're
being led or misled and that for me has been a really beautiful lesson
and if I just said this to my wife, I'll lie right now.
She would just laugh because she'd just find it funny.
And then she's, yeah, she also taught me how to love me for who I was and not what I had
because I think a lot of men go through this, at least men that I'm friends with and
that I've spoken to, that we want people to respect us for our success.
Yes.
And revere us for our accomplishments.
It's how men have been adored since the beginning of time for going.
out and getting the food or going out there and winning the battle or conquering a nation
and that's what you were known for. And so my wife's been with me since before my career
took off and I had any success. And I think as I gained success, I think my immaturity was to
want her to love me for that more. And she never did. She just didn't do it. Wow. And it drove
me crazy. And she didn't do it in a rejecting way or in a, in a, it just didn't make a difference.
to her. This isn't why I love you. And it took me a long time to wrap my head around that and
realize because those are the times when you could start liking other people who love you for what
you have achieved and what you have built and all the rest of it. And I think I just have so much
respect for her that. She never gave in on that. Yeah, she never gave in and she helped me love
myself for who I am. And I think that's the point that I think I would have, if I had met someone
else I would have valued myself for very different reasons and knowing you're with someone who
truly is with you because of who you are and your character and that's what they honour.
And I think that word honour and respect, probably the last thing I'd say, I think we always say
love is respect and based on respect, but I wrote a list of things that I tried to be clear
with myself about what it is I was really looking for and I really want. And one is someone
that I can learn from. So it's really interesting that you said learning without teaching,
teaching without learning and that kind of reciprocal. I really want to be with someone that
I can learn from. And I hope that, yeah, as you say, has the humility to be willing to learn
from me. But the other thing is, I think it's why I was so obsessed with the musical Hamilton
and why so many people have things. But like, maybe this is so funny that we're on the purpose
podcast. But like, are you with someone who, because obviously what you've
have with someone is wonderful right like what you two share together but if you can be in service of a
vision that you both share or at the very least are you willing to honor and give dignity to the work
of the other person and whatever their vision or mission is in this world that to me seems far more
sustainable than anything else and so I guess my big hope or wish would be that I met someone
who feels like what I want to do in the world.
Yes, that I'm important, but they also feel that what I'm here to do
is important to them too and in some way intersects with what they're here to do.
I couldn't agree more.
That's exactly what I was going to say.
Is it?
Yeah, I think the word respect and relationships thrown around a lot,
but this is the deepest form of respect where there's a famous quote that,
I don't know who said it, but there's a, and I would, you know,
you could take the genders out of it now,
but there's a famous quote that says men marry women hoping they'll never change and women marry men hoping they can change them
and to me wanting someone to never change or wanting to be able to change someone are both signs of disrespect
because I think the greatest respect you can have is to respect what this person values in this moment
and how that evolves.
And that's their purpose,
they're offering, their values.
And at no point at you trying to change them.
And I've talked about this often
where my wife and I,
I do this exercise with couples
when I'm working with them,
but I've also done it in our relationship.
And I ask people to rank their top three priorities in order.
Wow.
And people do it privately,
and then they share them.
Wow.
And so generally one person will put themselves first,
their partner second,
the kids third. And the other person will put the kids first, the partner second, and themselves
third. And the person who put themselves third is always mad at the person who put themselves first
because there's this friction of, well, wait a minute, how can you not put the kids first?
Or how can you not put family first or whatever it may be in your given situation? And the other person's
like, well, if I don't put myself first, then what can I give to you all? And that kind of displays this
dichotomy and this belief we have around love means complete sacrifice and love means self-sabotage
to some degree or love means putting yourself aside and the reality is actually no my goal is to
make sure that you live your purpose and greatest vision of yourself and your purpose is to help me do that
when we both do that everything's then it poetry and my wife practiced that and she does it naturally
and it's hard to do that in a world that constantly reminds you both that sometimes the other person
isn't where you are or, you know, the idea of why haven't you had kids yet or when are you
going to be in the same country for longer than a month or whatever there may be because it
doesn't fit into the norm of what relationships look like. And I was thinking about that with you
as well. Like, you know, I know you talked about how getting asked the question, when are you
getting married? Yeah. Or why aren't you married yet? Yes. And it's something every woman's
hearing. What's your reaction? What's your reaction?
when you hear that.
I'm just so happy not to be divorced yet.
Like, that sounds like a really negative answer,
but I just, like, I think that we're being pressured and forced
into this thing that, like, I believe is a kind of miracle.
I might never be worthy of it.
I hope it happens to me.
But, like, I don't feel entitled to it.
Like, it will either be part of my,
purpose here and my destiny or it won't and I think the way we treat it as though well why haven't you
and this is something that has to happen in this certain time span and at a certain age in this
kind of way is like the least romantic thing I can possibly think of like truly like if I had
tried to get married. Any point, basically, before about a year ago, it would have been
carnage. I just didn't know myself well enough yet. I didn't have a clear enough idea of what my
purpose, my vision, like how I was going to be of service. I didn't know where I really felt
like I needed to be. I think I have some of those answers now. So when I meet someone, I can say,
I'm Emma. This is what I care about. This is where the people I love the most live. This is where it's meaningful for me to be in the world. And then they can decide whether they can see that there's a way that I can serve what they're trying to do and they can serve what I'm trying to do. But before that, like they would have just got like a very mixed signal. I mean, there's some parts of me that have stayed utterly consistent. But there are some parts that like,
I was really still teasing out and figuring out. And I think it's such a violence and it's such
a cruelty on people and especially young people, I think, and especially women, to make them feel
like they have no worth or like they haven't succeeded yet in life because they haven't forced
to its culmination, something that I just don't think can or should ever be forced. It's something that, like,
honestly, I feel like I've had to earn, I've had to work for to be in a place where I feel
like I can look someone in the eye and be able to tell them who I am and to have some idea
and it will change and grow of what I want and what I'm here to do. That takes work.
I have like really sat with myself in a lot of discomfort and asked myself a lot of very difficult
questions to be at that point. It hasn't happened to me yet. I do think everyone's worthy of love,
but I, like, I, and I don't think that's what you're saying either. Yeah, thanks.
I think so. I guess maybe like partnership or marriage, I guess is what we're both saying is
like almost a different game. Like it's almost a different playing field, actually. Like actually
co-joining and properly sharing your life with someone and being in partnership with them
seems like it's its own thing it is it takes so much work and it takes so much
adjustment and adapting more than compromising and sacrificing but there's so much
flexibility there's so much allowing it's it's so different at different times like
sometimes patience looks like being by that person's side and saying nothing and sometimes
patience means being halfway across the world
and not communicating.
And sometimes patience looks like talking and listening.
Like, you know, it's, patients doesn't look like one thing over a lifespan.
And there are parts of my wife that have stayed exactly the same in 12 years.
And there are parts that have completely changed.
And I have a choice every time that happens to learn to love the new or not.
And that's a choice I have to make.
And she has to make as well.
And so there's so much constant choosing and constant evolving that it's very easy to just,
it's very easy to be like, yeah, I chose them the day we got married.
And people always ask me that, I'm like, I don't think I even knew who my wife was the day
we got married.
Like, now what I think about it.
It's like I loved her, but like, I had no idea.
And that's what it should feel like.
I don't think if I was here to say, like, yeah, the wedding day was one of the best days in my life,
but it's not the day I loved my wife the most.
Yeah.
Because I didn't really even know what I was getting myself into.
That's amazing.
I was thinking recently about trust and telling the truth.
And I realized the scary, crazy thing about it seems to me about intimacy
is that it seems to be conditional on your ability to keep telling the truth
and perhaps even revealing deeper and deeper and deeper truths.
at the risk that that truth might mean that that person might not continue to choose you.
Yes.
So even though you've been in this relationship for 12 years, like every day you have to choose
to risk it all if you want that to be continued intimacy by continuing to tell your truth
to this other person.
And that seems so courageous to me.
Like in order for there to be genuine connection and closeness, you have to be.
to be willing to risk it all sometimes, or like probably almost constantly. And that it seems
like it takes so much courage because we don't like change. We don't want things to change.
So you also want a relationship that's alive and still living and breathing and not some like
dead thing. Yeah, so well said. And what you're saying is like that feeling of when you're not
actually being truthful consistently, that's when we feel people have had big changes in their
life. Because if you had the consistent truthfulness, the change felt more smooth and gradual.
Whereas when the change came like, you know, a wrecking ball where I have this feeling and I'm just
telling you it, it's because I didn't tell you about all the little incremental changes. And
sometimes you don't know it's even happening. So it's not your fault or this is not something that
you can say it has to be the case. But I think that's why being more truthful, more honest, more
regularly and consistently allows for the change to feel more gradual. It's almost like going back
to your dance analogy. Like if you're about to throw someone up in the air and catch them,
there has to have been a touch or a preparation before someone just grabs hold of you and throws
you in the air. And it's like, well, I would have liked a warning. And that's why your analogy is so
good because it's you would throw someone up in a dance at some point if you were both talented
and gifted enough. But there would have been a preparation. There would have been a preparation. There would
have been a nod, there would have been a look, a feel, a touch, or, you know, to set that up.
Yes.
Like, one of the hardest questions, you talked about asking, answer it, asking yourself difficult
questions, and I want to ask you something about that.
But one thing I've said to my wife is, if you ever fall out of love with me, please tell me.
Because I don't want to live a day without love.
I'm really confident about the fact that I'm worthy of love and that I want to experience
love in my life.
If you ever fall out of me, just tell me it's okay.
because I don't have the desire
to stay somewhere for any other reason
and it sounds risky saying that in extreme
but to me it's a greater risk to have spent 10 extra years with someone
and then they tell me I haven't really loved you for the last 5, 10 years
and then I'm like, wait a minute, I've lived without love for 10 years in my life
and I don't want to be in that place
because I've seen people go through that and not be happy
and so it does come with a humility and a openness
to have very difficult conversations and not to force something that, oh, it's been going
and great for 12 years, it has to. It should do. It must do. And it's like, well, maybe no.
Like, yes, if it does, it's great. And it is right now. But why should right now be a prediction
for how you feel in 15 years with everything else that's going to change?
I think if I knew I really couldn't meet the needs of someone and they couldn't meet my needs,
if I really couldn't make them happy and they couldn't make me happy.
happy, like forcing them to stay in that situation. Surely that, like, makes love impossible,
like negates. So I totally get what you're saying. And my mom said this thing to me, which was like,
you want to be with someone because you want them, not because you need them. And I think
maybe another reason why I didn't get married younger is because I think maybe I would have
married someone not knowing who I was and I would have needed them maybe not wanted them and I think
now I have a life that's whole and complete as it is and I would be making a choice from a place of
I just want you and I don't need you but I just want you and I don't think I was that woman
five years ago yeah I love that and and there's so much so much to be said for
attracting from a place of peace because you know what peace feels like and so then anyone or anything
that comes into your life and what feeling satisfied feels like satisfied is probably even a better
word and that feeling of I know what it feels like to be satisfied and so I now know whether
someone makes me more satisfied or less I know what my baseline is you don't know what your
baseline happy is then how do you you've got no idea of knowing what's going on at all and that's not
feeling of being complete or having it all figured out. It's like I know what satisfied is a great
word. It's like I know what it feels like to be at peace with myself or satisfied with myself.
And now everyone can show me where that pendulum swings. Yes. One thing you said, which really
resonated with me is that you've had to ask yourself so many hard questions to do the work.
And I wanted to ask you, what's one of the hardest questions you've ever had to ask yourself,
if you could recall? Well, the first one that comes to.
to mind and then maybe I'll dig for a deep or a different one is like to have to admit to myself
or ask myself the question of like right now have the career and the life that like looks like
the dream but are you really happy Emma are you really healthy are you really happy like is this
really what you want and to be at that point and like realize and have to admit to myself that I wasn't
and I didn't was one of the scariest things I've ever had to do
because, you know, I basically had to ask myself on a daily basis,
like, I felt like I was crazy.
And walking away from something without knowing what you're walking towards
was not having the answers,
but leaving something that was, that the world considered to be such,
of such high value, such a high value,
kind of moment in my professional life and career. I think that was a real, sitting with that
was a real moment of reckoning of like, can you tell yourself the truth? Can you live with your
truth? Can you accept the fact that for most other people, your truth is pretty confusing and
unpalatable? That was definitely a hard moment of sitting. More recently, because I've been being
my own partner, asking myself, are you really living your values, the things that you preach,
are you actually aligned? And actually looking at some spaces in my life where I was like,
shit, no, not at all. I'm actually not doing what I talk about. And I need to like create some sort of
urgency or a deadline for that so that I make sure that I'm a person of integrity. I purport to be
someone that cares about the world and about the planet and sustainability and, you know,
there are some things I was doing, was it enough? By my own standards, not by anyone else's,
just by my own, probably not. But what's nice is I actually have the time now to be like,
okay, what are you to do about it? Like, get on with it. And like,
but those are, those are, thank you for those. Those are great questions. Really, really great
questions and so hard for so many reasons, especially when you talked about, like, when you're
stepping away from and stepping toward. Did you have people in the industry or like people
that you could talk to that felt the same way? Like, did you have co-stars or friends or?
No. No, I don't know anyone else. I'll never say that I quit acting. I'll always be an actor.
I'm still open to doing it again. But I certainly made a decision to take time to figure out
to not know and to, you know, I had like this whole disassembling the structure that's needed
to carry the load of Emma Watson. It's like there's an agent and a publicist and a manager
and a personal assistant and there's all these people and lives who are intertwined with mine
and navigating and caring for and negotiating that with people as well was like, was
really tricky and also I was just bloody terrified like I think there's a kind of infantilization
that can happen when you work as much as I did and a kind of loss of independence that means
that you're like oh my god can I even do my life if I don't have this like army of people
who are like helping me do the most menial and basic of things like can I
actually like do this stuff myself and I don't even say that in terms of like capability but like
just from the place of like it's difficult for me to walk down the street sometimes so if I'm going
to start to take on truly the responsibility for most of my life myself like what's that going to be
like can I really do that stuff I think fame makes you feel like you can't do things for yourself
in a way that can really disempower you and and remove your confidence in all
as a human being that's that's really disabling and for everyone who's wondering yeah
Emma called me up and I was like so should I speak to publicist she's like nope I am my publicist
I was like do I need to check with the manager no I am my manager and like that was literally
the conversation we had so she booked this podcast herself there was no booker there was no
booking system there was no there was no reach out it was literally Emma doing it herself
which is proof you are living your values thank you and and you are aligned with what
I wanted people to know that.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
What's so funny though now is like because I do everything myself,
there's like a 50% chance you would have not thought it was me or like sometimes when I reach out to people.
I had plenty of moments.
I had to double take.
I was like, wait a minute.
Verified tick.
Verified tick.
A amount of followers who you follow.
People think it's not me.
And so like I have a 50-50 rate of people actually just like not responding to me because they don't think I'd be reaching out myself.
That's real
I had to do a second day
I think I even checked it
this morning
like wait a minute
Is it definitely her
Am I gonna turn up
In some like
You know catfish situation
No it's wild
Yeah
Oddly sometimes it takes more work
Me trying to do things myself
Than through the system
Yeah
I know you did a great job
But that
Yeah those hard questions
That you asked yourself
I mean
What was it
that gave you courage to walk a path where you don't know the next three steps
when you have an entire career lined up on the other side.
You have an amazing career.
Every movie you've been in has been magical and amazing.
When you look at your portfolio of choices,
like they're all brilliant performances, they're great films,
and you only would have more of that.
So it's also not like you're leaving a career that's kind of had it.
Do you know what I mean?
It's at a place where,
no business-oriented person could imagine why. And so what gives you courage when one side is
so clear and one side is not clear at all? Again, I'm going to tell the honest version of this
story. I'd love to tell you that it was like this incredible courage and determination I have
inside of me. And yes, there's part of that. I'm not going to like completely erase my role in
all of this. But I think a big part was that it was coming to a point with my health and nervous
system where I was starting to hit a point of not no return, but like it's interesting. I
eat well, I do yoga, I do medicine, I do all the things, right? But I think I was using
those as a way of mitigating how much stress I was under as opposed to actually what those
things are really for are compasses and points towards our truth. And I was, I was using them
as a way of like bolstering myself and allowing myself to continue down a path that actually was
kind of wrecking me and I think it was just like my immune system couldn't pretend anymore I was
on seven or eight packets of an antibiotic every year because my immune system was so low
that I would just constantly be getting sick and a sinus infection and whatever else
I have no idea.
My body just started being like, no.
I went from being someone who, I would say,
I still handle stress and pressure well,
and in the moment I could always do it.
But the cost afterwards was starting to get more and more serious
to the point where it was like,
I'd always turned down.
I actually remember I was in my early 20s
when a publicist first offered me a beta blocker.
I was nervous before a carpet, and it's the only ever time I ever took anything.
And I was fine for the two hours after I took it, and then I got back to the room,
and when my feelings came back to me, I was, like, overwrought with grief and feeling
of having blocked it.
And so I'd always, and after that, I never allowed anyone to give me anything again,
even though I was offered things multiple times.
And doctors wanted to give me things for jet lag and for sleep and for nerves and, oh, everyone takes it.
This is, you know, there's no shame in this or whatever, but I just, I felt like in order to keep going,
I was going to have to make a decision of like, are you okay with being low level, unwell and medicated, essentially?
and I just knew that wasn't a choice for me.
So in a way, I have my body to think because my body just, I didn't want to ignore my body anymore
and it didn't matter how many asylum retreats I went on or how much yoga I did or what new
thing I did to try and take care of myself.
My body was done.
And that was then I think when I went away and found a relationship.
with myself and my practice and just having trust and faith in a way that I never had before
and I started listening more carefully to like these little whispers of like oh like maybe this
should be the thing you do or like even coming and doing this of like I think you should go
and do this podcast just listening to myself for clues basically and listening to the universe
whatever that means but I never had that before I never had
I never knew how to listen for those things before. I truly went away and had nothing for a while.
So that was probably the best result of all of that.
Yeah, and I think it still takes so much courage because it does, even though you didn't see it that way and you may not have noticed it,
it still takes so much courage to listen to your body because it is easy to keep medicating in all the ways to,
to break it anyway and to push it to the edges and the limits of its ability and because you're
so addicted or intoxicated by the success or whatever it may be. I guess the courageous part
was just knowing I didn't want to numb out. That was the point at which it got too big of a cost
because I was like, okay, if I feel like I need to be, I'm at the point where the price is too
high now. Yeah, I loved what you said about when they're meant to be compassed to our truth.
and not like this band-aid pacification of and I've been highly really effectively using those band-aids
they will carry you far like I had a lot of practice I think that's how they're presented now too
it's become this and that's why when you said that I think you it's almost like I'm trying to
think of it a good metaphor but the one that's coming to my mind it's almost like driving to the
grocery store in a sports car and it's like a sports car's made for this high-speed track like
that's what it's for, but you're using it just to drive 25 miles an hour to the grocery store
and it's like, no, it has so much more capability and ability to take you somewhere phenomenally,
but you're using it for a really simple, basic task. Not going to lie, though, I remember when I did
my first vipassanar and sat long enough, and I went to my teacher and I was like, what have I done?
Go on tell me about this, go on. What have I done?
What do you mean?
In what way?
Because in a way, it was almost like I realized once you start paying attention to your truth, it's very difficult to go back.
And in some way, it felt like, I was like, oh my God, I don't know if I like this.
I don't know if I like this.
So good.
Maybe I want to go back.
And once you step through it, you kind of can't go back.
And I remember him looking at me calmly and saying, could you even go back now?
if he wanted to and I was like I guess not I guess this is the path I've chosen to walk
and to some degree in the same way that getting cast as Hermione and like making my
peace with the way that that changed my life were my marching orders I think trusting that is that's
that's all I can do at this point I'm just holding one for dear life yeah it's like the mafia
Once you're in, you know too much.
Yeah, it's true.
I'll never forget that moment.
I'll never forget that moment.
I was like, oh no, this is undoable now, isn't it?
And he was like, kind of, yeah.
I was like, oh no, it's so uncomfortable.
It's so uncomfortable being honest with myself.
And then I have to be honest with other people as well.
This is a nightmare.
Why did I do this?
Why am I here?
Oh, God.
I'm just imagining you on that in the past.
like coming out of it and just having that reaction yeah it's so funny yeah that that needs to
get added to the play okay that moment that moment needs to be added to the play yeah I wrote something
I wrote something about my doing the doing the 10-day of pasta for the first for the first time because
my God that is such a it's such a roller coaster yeah it's such a roller coaster anything you want to
share about you I mean I think what was funny was like I have this picture that I drew
of day two and it's like green and pink and there's butterflies on it and it literally says
I think it says this is so embarrassing it says I am beautiful it's so embarrassing I just felt like
I was like oh my god this is bliss I was like riding this wave of like meditation ecstasy basically
whatever dopamine here I was getting from that was wild I just felt unbelievable and then I surfed that
wave straight into some kind of like brick wall of oh my god like all the things in life that
you think are outside of you actually live inside you and so even when you're like in this
beautiful place on this gorgeous meditation retreat with all of these like wonderful and
lightened people everything starts to drive you crazy and even the like salt shaker and the
pepper pot in front of you start to take on the shapes of your real life and you realize
that your mind just starts creating all this drama for you,
even though there's nothing going on, literally.
And it was just, it was such a wild experience
to kind of sit there and be like, oh my God,
I'm not creating all of my own drama.
This is a nightmare.
It's me.
It's me.
I'm the problem.
And I was like, I can't stay here.
I can't do this.
This is way too hard.
Living with myself and my own thoughts is going to try.
This is unbearable.
I can't do this.
That was a really big learning and what I have to remember all the time is like, I, as a perfectionist, which again is a kind of violence on yourself, I would try to like shame and blame myself into and like kind of shake myself up and give myself these kinds of like talkings to to make myself do stuff.
And sometimes, to be honest with you, they work in the short term and in the long term, they fail.
you miserably. Like, they just do not work. I, the only way that I have learned to change my
patterns to show up for myself better to change in the ways I want to change and grow is to be
loving towards myself. So getting to be in the room with that person at that moment was a
massive gift. It's amazing. I love it how someone that you can attend a class with can become
such a big teacher for you when you allow it to be and, you know, someone who wasn't the leader
or the guide of the group can have such an impact on you.
Speaking about love, did you want to share the, is it the practice that you went through recently?
Is that what you do?
Oh, yeah, the ring.
Yeah, the ring.
Yeah, oh my God, that's sweet of you to remember I mentioned that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess having gone through this odyssey, which has been the last, I guess, seven years,
I was like, okay, I kind of feel like I've got to a place, and this will continue forever,
where I want to celebrate where I ended up after I kind of left land.
felt like and yeah I did a ritual with or like I guess just a day of celebrating with my friends
and chosen family and they each bought me this ring which has 22 petals on it and each of
them bought one and I've just never owned anything so valuable in my life because I I to me
it represents the life that I've built, which was the one that I really wanted,
which was one that was made up of community and my roots and faith and trust.
And in some funny way, it signals to me that even though I have no outward signs of my success,
save for this crazy one-woman play I've written, I don't even have my degree yet.
It signals to me that for me, achieved what I wanted to achieve for myself.
Wow.
So that's pretty cool.
I love that every time I look down on my finger,
I can see all of the faces of the people who bought it for me.
You're amazing at holding space.
You're so kind.
The amount of people who've probably sat in this chair and been as emotional as I have
and you don't turn away.
It's amazing.
It's easy with you.
That's very kind.
Thank you.
It's really easy because it's really heartfelt,
and you've shared so much of me before today and today
that I felt like you shared,
you created that space for me to sit with you
before today and today.
Wow.
What makes a real friend?
So you said you had 22, 22?
22, yeah.
22 friends.
What defines a good friend for you?
Oh my God.
For me, I've never killed anyone in my life.
life and I have no intention of killing anyone. But like, is the person who you can call when
you're like, they would help you carry the dead body across the floor? You know what I mean?
You're like, the person you call, you're like, shit, I think I've done this thing. And I need you to
like either tell me I'm crazy or tell me I'm not crazy or tell me the truth or help me fix it or
I don't know. I think it's like the people that, God, it's the people that you just like do not
have to have airs and graces with and who you can just be like this just happened and it's such a
disaster and yeah and i i don't know people i think also who can handle your truths your real
truths and vulnerabilities like their sacred and with care i think that's been very important for
me because I think maybe part of my bravado is I'll make a joke of or I'll be brave about
things I don't feel very brave about. And it takes someone who knows me quite well to go,
she's making a joke about this. She's like actually dying inside and I kind of know that
and like I'm going to hold her through it. Yeah, I think real friends are the ones when you're in
a really tight corner and not just that we'll like show up begrudging.
me, but be like, what are we dealing with today? And, like, maybe we'll enjoy that or see that
as, like, an honour and a privilege, actually. I think that's been a big learning for me. And
it's an honour and a gift when someone asks you for help or when they need you. And I think I
used to feel really embarrassed about needing anything from anyone or asking for help. I used to
see it as, like, a great shame, like something I was really embarrassed to do. And now I see it
as like, I guess, like, knowing how I feel when someone asks me for help that I really love
and how amazing it feels to be able to be there for someone else.
I try to remind myself that when I'm feeling like I couldn't possibly burden someone else
with something.
I remind myself, and I do you remember how good it felt that someone, like, asked you
to show up for them and that you got to be there for them at their work?
or darkest.
And so I think coming to understand, like, I think I also confused codependency or like, I don't
know, I didn't, we are so interdependent as species and like we, we, there's no shame
in needing and wanting other people.
I didn't, I didn't understand, I didn't understand.
And I do, yeah.
I love that answer.
I love how it started as.
If I ever kill someone.
Which I wouldn't, I swear, and I haven't.
I won't.
It's so good.
It's so good.
It's so funny.
It's like, I did not expect you to say that.
It was so good.
It was so surprising.
I love it.
But no, it's so true.
Like when I left the monastery and even though I was with my wife and we go into a relationship
and we were dating, I used to always feel like I didn't.
I always, I had this false mindset because of my immaturity and understand what being a monk was.
Yeah.
In that it was in this.
independent way of not needing or wanting anyone and that we were in a relationship but it was great
but like that wasn't and I held that immature and I probably verbalized it to her too many times
for too long in the beginning of our relationship I have no idea why she stayed but it's uh it took
recently it was we this was so recent this was like maybe a couple of months ago well I realized
that I shouldn't have said that years ago but then a couple of months ago my wife said to me she
goes you're my calm like you calm my nervous system
And I was like, you're my joy.
Like, you bring joy to every part of my life.
And it was like, that exchange was so needed and so powerful
after having for so long feeling like, oh, I have everything I need anyway.
And I do.
I genuinely believe that.
But it's what you said is that we're interdependent for a reason.
Yes, we co-regulate.
And I said, yeah, my wife, mate, had so much.
It's like saying I don't need salt added on to this meal.
And like the meal is great.
And it's like, I don't need any more salt.
And it's like, well, no, if you add a little bit of salt, it would make it a bit better.
way better and it's like and we kind of live in that life of like I don't want to add anything to
this and it's it's almost a defense mechanism because we're so scared that there may not be
someone to add oh my god and i've lived there so i that yeah that resonated very strongly
i think that was one of the other gifts actually of getting to a point where because i used to be this like
i'm so tough and dependent and i can do anything person and being at the point where i was like oh
shit, I actually think I'm like not okay and my body forcing me to ask other people for help
was the biggest gift of my life because it brought me so much closer to other people
and I learned that not only is it not a burden it's genuinely yeah a privilege and a gift
sometimes to to have someone ask you that question or like be honest about the ways that they
need you and it's crazy how long it takes about these things yeah absolutely you've done so much
inner work and self-work and i'm wondering what's what's the work you've been avoiding what's the
work you've been putting off wow i think it's probably something around now tying it all together
I think in some ways me being here today is me trying to do the piece I've been avoiding maybe
which is like, okay, you know you want to show up as a full integrated whole self
and not compartmentalize and split and fragment yourself in a way that keeps you safe
and that compartmentalization did keep me safe and felt very necessary for a long time
because I was trying to keep some walls up where I could nurture myself and learn and grow
and then be ready to share those pieces.
But I think it's probably figuring out how to avoid the pieces that I know aren't good for me
and that are genuinely just toxic but to yeah have the courage to show up now in whatever
form that is and trust again whether that's a person or it's making something or it's kind of
okay have you learned enough that you can integrate and and show you.
now that you've done this inner work on your own.
Yeah, and that feels that resonate.
Okay, good.
Yeah, yeah, it's hard, it's hard to verbalize.
It's almost like it is that you've been private for so long.
Yeah.
And you've been working in private on your fascinations, your curiosities, your friends,
your inner work, and then to actually come out and talk about what that period has been
like publicly.
Yeah.
is something you can keep pushing off and and maybe how that ties into partnership is that
I've realized actually that some of the people I've been attracting on the dating front
think they're dating some previous version of me who I'm who still exists in some ways
but who isn't actually who I am now and I realized I was like oh
Like, I'm still getting sent people who, like, are seeing someone who was part of the picture, but not the whole picture.
And it's starting to feel uncomfortable to not feel like I'm telling this part of the story, if that makes sense.
It's even hard for you to be like, well, these are the parts that are still there and these are, like, it's not a didactic process of, like, it's not.
It's not a equation where you can go, well, these are the parts that I've kept.
These are the parts that are not, like it doesn't work like that.
No, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that.
But I'm still getting requests that want to drag me a little bit more into a version of myself.
Who was great and she was doing great stuff.
But I think there's a part of me now that really feels like being able to speak to you one-on-one in this kind of setting
as opposed to what I used to do, which would be an enormous audience, and there'd be like 300
people there. And, like, of course there's intimacy you can find in a room like that. But, like,
the truth is, it's really difficult to find the kind of depth and the kind of connections that I know
are the ones that nourish me personally. And that's, it's different for everyone, but that just
aren't allowing me to have the thing that I know, there's the real thing that I'm actually
seeking and what I used to go into lots of other environments seeking and thinking I'd be able to
get and just not not being able to find. I mean something I wanted to ask you about that's
difficult and challenging because it's something you spoke about earlier as to being such a
big part of your life, an important part of your life. But recently there's been so many
conversations and comments directly from JK Rowling, whether it's her saying she'd never forgive you
for your views or the fact that when she was asked what ruins the movies for her, she named
yourself and some of your co-stars. And I imagine that's an extremely difficult thing when you've
been a part of someone's world when you've felt connected to their work and then for it now
to kind of be a full 180. And for someone to publicly say these things that can be quite
are extremely hurtful, actually.
How do you think about that?
I really don't believe
that by
having had that experience
and holding
the love and support
and views that I have
mean that I can't
and don't
treasure Joe
and the person that I
that I had personal experiences with
I will never believe
that one negates the other
and that my experience of that person
I don't get to keep and cherish
I come back to our earlier thing
like I just don't think these things are either or
I think
it's my deepest wish
that I hope people who don't agree with my opinion will love me
and I hope I can keep loving people who I don't necessarily share the same opinion with
and I think that's a very, very important way for me
that I need to be able to move through life.
I just really, I guess I, to circle back around,
I really do believe in having...
conversations and that those are really important and that I don't know I guess where I've landed is
it's not so much what we say or what we believe but very often how we say it that's really
important and that's really frustrating and not what you want to hear when you're really
angry and upset with someone um but i don't know i just see this world right now where we seem to be
giving permission for this kind of like throwing out of people or that people are disposable
and i i just think that's i will always think that's wrong i always i just believe that
no one is no one's disposable and everyone as far as possible whatever the conversation is
should and can be treated with at the very least dignity and respect thank you for challenging us
and yeah it takes a lot I think that's what we're all being challenged to do is trying to hold two
truths at once and yes those two truths don't have to be complementary but they they can stand
at the same time yeah i think the thing i'm most upset about is that a conversation was never made
possible so you remain open for that dialogue yeah and i always will i believe in that i believe in that
completely um i believe in that completely i believe in that completely i just
I just don't, yeah, I just don't want to say anything that, like, continues to weaponize a really, like, toxic debate and conversation, which is maybe why I, I don't, well, it is why I don't comment or, like, continue to comment, not because I don't care about her or about the issue, but because I just, the way that the conversation is being had feels really painful to me.
and so that's why that's why that decision yeah i really i really appreciate that mindset and
deeply deeply feel like if people are challenged to go there themselves like it takes a lot
to think that way and feel that way yes it's it's what it's what healing really requires
across you know around the world and i can't imagine how many young people who look up to you
and people who look up to you will feel the same way to recognise that that's how we engage,
that's what we look for, it's not that we're trying to make everything pretty and perfect.
No, no, it's that we're willing to engage in an uncomfortable conversation.
Yes, her kindness and words of encouragement and that steadfastness, that and also, honestly,
just as a young woman, for her to have written that character, created that world,
given me an opportunity, which, to be honest, barely exists in the history of English literature.
You know, there's just no world in which I could ever cancel her out or cancel that out for anything.
It has to remain true. It is true. And this is where this like holding of these, I just don't know what else to do.
than hold these two seemingly incompatible things together at the same time and just hope maybe
they will one day resolve or co-join themselves and maybe accept that they never will, but that they
can both still be true. And I can love her, I can know she loved me, I can be grateful to her,
I can know the things that she said are true, and that can be this whole other thing.
And my job feels like to just hold, just to hold all of it.
But the bigger thing is just what she's done will never be taken away from me.
Thanks for saying such a powerful example.
Thank you.
That beautiful F. Scott Fitzgerald quote that the sign of a first-rate intelligence
is the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time
and still retain the ability to function.
He goes on to say,
one should therefore be able to see
that the world is hopeless,
but still be determined to make it otherwise.
And it's like, that's...
F Scott Fitzgerald said that.
Wow, he ran deeper than I knew.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's F scott.
Wow, that's incredible.
That's incredible.
Yeah, it's one of my favorite.
Wow, well done you for remembering that second part.
Wow, you've made me like Fitzgerald a lot.
I mean, I liked him, don't get me wrong.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
to me it's one of my favorite ideas. Wow, that's so good. Yeah, it's so good. That's so good.
Yeah. Emma, for someone who has tried to stay out of the public eye, you've still been vocal about causes you believe in things that you stand for.
Yes. And that always seems to get attention and reaction. And so when you shared online your solidarity for Palestine,
the former Israeli UN ambassador, Danny Dunon, called you an anti-Semite.
And his tweet said, 10 points from Gryffindor for being an anti-Semite.
What goes through your mind when you see that?
This happened a few years ago now.
I think what concerned me at the time was the way that that label was being used.
and I think even now I see that playing out where we aren't people don't feel like they can talk about what's happening safely this duality created where we don't seem able to care about the victims of terrorism and care about the genocide that's happening that's happening.
in Palestine at the same time
and both things have to be allowed to be true
you have to be allowed to care about
50,000 civilians dying
17,000 of which are children
and
care deeply
about the victims
of this awful terrorist attack
I appreciate you sharing that and
yeah it seems like that belief system you have
in yes and and this and and together it kind of runs through so many areas of your life
personal and beyond yes i think that's i think that's true i think that's true i hope that you've felt
you've been able to share the parts of yourself and the version of yourself that you wanted to and intended
to i hope so i feel very hot and i feel very hot and
I feel a little bit like, is this room even real, like, are we, is this like a Goddard play
where we're like in some sort of existential room that doesn't exist anymore?
In a second, all the world is going to drop.
Honestly, I feel a little bit like that.
But as long as this was real and these are, these four walls are actually here, then yes,
I do feel that way.
And I, or like, I've done everything I can in a context that's still, I can still see cameras
and lights and I know there's a person behind me but I feel to the extent to which I can
humanly do that I've shown up for myself and for you in a way and the invitation that this
podcast is and the work that you do in the world I've answered that invitation so I feel I feel good
about that and I've got I know it's a bit hot but I've got a couple of questions
We end on with every episode.
Yes.
These are your final five.
They have to be answering one word to one sentence maximum,
but I will probably ignore that rule, as I always do.
Amazing.
So question number one is we ask these to everyone who's ever been on the show.
What is the best advice you've ever heard or received?
I'm going to cheat slightly if you'll allow it.
I read Emergent Strategy by Adrian Rue.
was given to me as a gift by my friend Anne-Marie for my 30th birthday. And I think that
being a good, pious, Protestant English girl, I really believed that if I worked hard enough
and if I was kind of saintly enough that someone would see my good deeds and all of my hard
work and, like, give me the sticker, you know, give me the, like, give me the star. And so,
So a kind of martyrdom was part of my sort of, I understood was important in my, and I think
reading her book and reading about pleasure activism, which is sort of the idea that
like anything that you need to, that you want to sustain, e.g. justice, e.g. you need it to be
easy and you need it to be pleasurable in a way because that's what's going to mean that you'll be
able to do it for a long time. Part of my burnout was that I wasn't prioritizing pleasure and joy
as kind of like underpinning for even some of the harder, more somber, or cerebral things that I
was doing and I think that's such a great answer that changed my life and I think we also have a
model particularly within activism and um and lots of spaces that like this kind of
sole individual charismatic leader and I like you I know my hero is always martin lisa king
and gandy and you just saw this sort of like solitary
person that was doing that. And I think if I could go back and do anything differently, it would be
that when I embarked on some of the public activism that I did, I wouldn't go in the way I did.
I would go in with what I have now, which is not just like an activist community. Like I have
friends who can give me feedback and who I can talk to and who I feel that I'm not doing
the work alone, solo, however heroic that might look.
yeah I guess
heroism and martyrdom
the way that it was looked
maybe I just don't
believe that's how we'll get the job
done anymore
anything good will get done
so I think that book
and I think that idea
that revolutionized
my approach
I love that yeah that's a great answer
it's beautiful I want to read that book now
I haven't read it you have to have from the podcast
yeah absolutely
question number two
what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?
Oh.
So much.
How long have you got?
God, mostly just like, I think a lot of stuff around toughen up, bottle it up, deal with that later.
You know, just like subtle versions of like, well, maybe tell the truth, but just not all of it.
Like maybe like, maybe just like tell like a little bit of it, but not like the whole thing, you know?
because like the truth is the problem with like telling three quarters of the truth
is that then you're sort of in this like constant
peeling and unpealing of yourself where you sort of like
you're sort of trying to do it but you're not quite doing it and I don't know
I think a lot of advice around that also anyone that tells you not to do what you love
terrible advice
doing what you love will lead you where you need to go even if you can't see it at the time
Yeah
Yeah
I'm just thinking about
Terrible beauty tips and advice I've been given around
Like I don't know
Just like oh god
Again like back to our previous conversation
All the ridiculous things that you are encouraged
To try and do as a woman like fake tan
And I mean it's hilarious
I actually right now
it might be like well covered up but I accidentally have a model of fake tan in my bathroom
and in my jet lag state last night I thought I was putting moisturizer on but now I have like
these like horrific fake tan marks on my legs and feet I guess I'm just thinking about just like
oh my God and recently I was like okay I want to get my teeth whitened and I look like Ross from
friends when he'd had that awful fake tanning accident because they were just
just way too white. And then I had to spend, go back for two other visits to get the dentist
to put my teeth back to my normal teeth. So I guess I was just laughing, thinking about, like,
worse advice is just like, don't ever listen to beauty technicians or anyone advising you to do
anything weird to your body face appearance. Just don't, don't listen. Don't, don't take the bait.
Just don't do it.
So good. That's time sad. That's answer, though. Question number three. How are you, how are you, how are
now going to choose work projects or activism differently?
Does the person that's asking me to do something with them,
can they confidently look at me and say that they care about me
far more than what we're producing?
And do I care about them that way?
One of my favorite people I worked with Steve Chibosky,
I remember him leaving what was a very productive,
rehearsal or script meeting with Logan Learman, Nezra Miller and I.
And he was like, I need to go and be with my wife now.
And we were like, I don't think I've ever heard.
I mean, at that point, I certainly hadn't ever heard a director in my career
say they needed to leave for a personal reason or for a personal relationship.
But I worked far harder for Steve than I worked for any other director
because I think I was able to give a far more vulnerable performance in that film
because I felt that he really cared about me beyond the product of the film.
And I want to work with people like that who, for whom the process is as important as the outcome.
And the people that are part of it are more important than whatever the outcome is.
I think this is a really difficult thing that I see everywhere in the world right now is that we treat objects and things like they're sacred.
and we don't treat people like they're the sacred thing and that switch yeah i think it causes
a lot of pain emma something that you told me when we were speaking on the phone was that
you've been working with the young people on helping them with some of the challenges that you've
faced in your own career in your own life yeah and i remember being so touched by that
and I wanted to learn more and for you to share it because I, yeah, I just think it's really
special and I was sharing it with so on my team before you arrived and everyone was quite drawn to
it. As a young person and, you know, as I basically shared over however long it's been that
we've been speaking, I just really needed to be having more conversations with people my own age
and people that were older than me, I feel like I tried to navigate so many problems on my own
and I just didn't know who to really speak to.
And I was speaking to such a narrow group of people about what I was trying to navigate.
And I just, I think that working with young people and giving them each other
and also the space, the reason, the excuses to talk about the things that we don't talk about
or create spaces for has been the most gratifying, the most purposeful and of service I felt
in a long time because it turns out pretty often that a lot of the things that we're
struggling with, other people are struggling with as well.
So in a way, going back around and trying to put out into the world, a lot of the things that I knew I needed as a young person and didn't get.
It's been the best, most, the best, most gratifying thing.
And I feel really lucky to be in a position and in a place where I can say a no, like, like I've kind of done this treacherous journey.
And I think that I think I might have some ideas about what might be needed for someone to come out the other side of that safely.
So it feels good to be of use.
Yeah, I love that.
Fifth of final question we asked this to every guest who's ever been on the show.
If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
Oh, wow.
One law.
Okay, there's a couple of contenders.
want to run you through one one is going to be we'll vote on them okay great perfect one would be
around the importance of telling the truth or like speaking your truth or just because i feel like
so much so much chaos is caused by people not being sure whether or not they should or it's a good
idea too or i think that would be a pretty amazing one uh another contender i mean it's the obvious one
is treat other people as you would like to be treated.
I would obviously solve a lot of problems as well.
I like that one you gave.
The last one.
Yeah, the first one.
Oh, the first one.
The first one, yeah, the truth, yeah.
I guess it took me a long time and probably,
probably through doing my yoga teacher training,
speaking truth with kindness is one of the first Niamas, right?
Very disappointed.
I can't remember what the word is in...
Not satva.
Maybe, yeah.
Speaking the truth with kind.
Like, speaking the truth is kind.
There's an amazing quote, which actually is given to be recently by a friend, which is like, the truth, the truth without kindness is brutality and kindness without truth is manipulation.
Say that again?
Truth without kindness is brutality and kindness without truth is manipulation.
And so when I say like tell your truth, I don't mean going around like just being awful to everyone.
I mean like telling the microscopic truth and like having those, being willing to have a tolerance for those conversations.
One of my favorite metaphors I actually wrote about this recently for being in a relationship with anyone is like you're in, it's in a way, it's a dance, it's a fight.
Like I think about boxing in the sense of like who is going to go down to the mat with you.
like not tap out because being honest about what's really going on is uncomfortable and it's
risky as we talked about earlier you risk every time you tell the truth of maybe losing someone
that you love because you don't know how they're going to respond to whatever your truth is
but I think to live that way creates the intimacy and connection that I think we long for
and also like sets people free in a way you and them truth yeah truth with kindness I think
that's, I think that's going to have to be my choice. My factor of deduction. Yeah, the
Bogart Gita gives four principles for truth with kindness. The first is what you speak should
be truthful. Yes. The second is it should be beneficial to all. Oh. The third is it shouldn't
agitate the minds of others. Wow. And the fourth is it should be aligned with eternal wisdom and
timeless wisdom. That's beautiful and perfect because, yeah, I think there's true.
which are, if they're not beneficial, that do just agitate, I think that's...
And it's not about not saying it, it's the idea that you've thought so much about how you say it.
Yes.
It's not that you've sanitized it because that's the modern day version.
The Gita's not telling you to sanitize or be silenced.
Right.
It's telling you to filter your thought to make sure that the way you say it is digestible
for everyone who's going to hear it and therefore it actually has transformative power.
it's not that it's not provocative or that it doesn't it's just that you're not saying it in a way
to trigger or get a reaction yeah you're saying in a way that hits someone like an arrow of truth
wow it goes i have to change wow because that person has been so mindful of how they spoke
oh my god that's incredible that's everything i've just been trying to say about yeah if if we
god if everyone was mindful enough about how they spoke their truth that it could just go straight
to the heart, oh.
Rather than hit the ego along the way and the mind.
And that's why we can't talk
because everything we say triggers someone's mind or their ego
and then everything we say does it back.
And so now we're having a mind and ego debate,
which isn't the one that goes all the way to tap, you know, in your...
We're so focused on defending whatever the thing is
that we feel that we need to defend, that we just can't let...
Can't get the heart. No, you can't hit the heart.
so good
so good
Emma thank you for
the longest
recorded conversation
in on purpose history
we had to change
the cards
the cameras
and we haven't paused
just so everyone knows
just everyone knows
me and Emma have not moved
so we didn't take a break
there was no bathroom break
there was no break of whatever kind
there was no coffee break
we have sat in these seats
for the entire duration
that you watch this show or listen to it
and to Emma, you have the
you know, to your competitive
and winning spirit, you have the
award for longest ever
podcast recording. I don't
know whether to be mortified or
like seriously embarrassed
or like
feel like this is some kind of victory
of some kind. I guess you sat here for like
and not moved for more than three hours.
Really? Yeah. Surely.
It's amazing. That's amazing.
Well, thank you for, thank you so much
It's just been such an amazing conversation.
If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Mate
on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds
to start moving on from the past.
Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable.
So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it?
It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.
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Just like great shoes, great books take you places.
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