As a celebrity reaches higher levels of success and fame, they start to accumulate a bigger and bigger fanbase. Unfortunately, this eventually erupts into a frenzy of criticism and obsessive fans looking to find out everything they can about those that they idolize. A lot of this is fairly harmless, but it's hard not to worry over those who dedicate much of their lives to people they don't know, forgetting that they are fallible human beings themselves.
This applies to plenty of actors and actresses in the world of Hollywood, but there are certain franchises where the passion of fans is elevated to a whole new level. This is definitely true of movies series such as The Hunger Games or The Avengers and its cinematic tie-ins, but the franchise that has had arguably the broadest appeal and the most passionate fandom is the
Harry Potter series.
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After the seven books that started it all off, the movies allowed the story to reach an even larger audience, leaving its child actors with far more attention than any teenager is used to getting. Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy, even made a documentary called 'Tom Felton Meets the Superfans', in which the actor met with
obsessive fans of his series and others.
Daniel Radcliffe and
Rupert Grint have both gone on to have productive careers since the series' end in 2011, but it's
Emma Watson who truly came into her own in the subsequent years - becoming involved in activism and various charitable projects as well as continuing her acting career.
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In 2014, at the young age of 24, she was appointed the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, and in response said that "women’s rights are something so inextricably linked with who I am, so deeply personal and rooted in my life that I can’t imagine an opportunity more exciting".
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However, she does have one issue with her still-growing fan base. While she's happy to talk to fans at length or sign autographs, Watson draws the line at taking selfies with them. But the reason for it actually makes a lot of sense. In an interview with Vanity Fair, she said:
"For me, it’s the difference between being able to have a life and not. If someone takes a photograph of me and posts it, within two seconds they’ve created a marker of exactly where I am within ten meters. They can see what I’m wearing and who I’m with. I just can’t give that tracking data."
“I’ll say, ‘I will sit here and answer every single Harry Potter fandom question you have but I just can’t do a picture."
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Watson has met all manner of fans over the years, as you would expect from as popular an actress as her, but she has to identify which interactions are worth involving herself with.
"I have met fans that have my face tattooed on their body. I’ve met people who used the Harry Potter books to get through cancer. I don’t know how to explain it, but the Harry Potter phenomenon steps into a different zone.
“I have to carefully pick and choose my moment to interact. When am I a celebrity sighting versus when am I going to make someone’s freakin’ week? Children I don’t say no to, for example."
While I'm sure there are plenty of perks to being so famous, it must be utterly strange to grow up being in the public eye like this. Quite frankly, I'm glad I can walk to the shops without someone trying to take a selfie with me.
