By Christina Radish
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Emma Watson at the premiere of "The Tale of Despereaux" held at the ArcLight Cinemas in Hollywood, Calif. on December 7, 2008.
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In the Universal Pictures animated adventure The Tale of Despereaux, based on the book by Kate DiCamillo, tiny Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), graced with oversized ears, was born too big for his little world. Refusing to live his life cowering, he befriends a Princess named Pea (Emma Watson) and learns to read, rather than eat, books about knights, dragons and fair maidens. Banished from Mouseworld for being more man than mouse, Despereaux is rescued by another outcast, Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman), who also wants to hear the tales. But, when the Princess dismisses Roscuro’s friendship, he becomes the ultimate rat and plots revenge with fellow outsider Mig (Tracey Ullman). After Pea is kidnapped, Despereaux discovers he is the only one who can rescue her, and that even the tiniest mouse can find the courage of a knight in shining armor.
Best known as Hermione Granger in the hugely popular and successful Harry Potter franchise, 18-year-old British actress Emma Watson spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about voicing her first animated character, for The Tale of Despereaux.
MediaBlvd Magazine> What did you like about your character?
Emma Watson> She’s basically your quite generic princess. She’s very beautiful and she lives in the Land of Dor and everything’s great, but then she loses her mother, and what makes it worse is that she not only loses her mother, she also loses her father because he goes into this state of grieving, and he just kind of locks himself away from his people and his responsibilities and also from his role as a father. So she’s pretty lonely, she’s pretty isolated, she’s kind of literally locked up in this tower, and she can’t really be part of the real world. So I thought it was interesting and felt very sad for her. I thought the conversations she had with Despereaux were really charming, and I really fell in love with the script and the book, more than the character.
MediaBlvd> Was it a challenge to work in the recording booth?
Emma> Yeah, it did take me a little bit of time to adjust because, when you work on a film, you do voice recording and, if anything goes wrong, you do a couple days of ADR. A lot of my performance is quite physical in the film because I’ve been kidnapped and there’s a rat in my room. It was hard trying to get all of that into my voice -- the emotion, the out-of-breath and the screaming. It was fun. I was actually given a toy Despereaux, who I could speak to, so I had a substitute. It was really interesting and great fun.
MediaBlvd> Did you work by yourself the whole time?
Emma> Actually, Matthew very kindly came in and did a couple of days with me.
MediaBlvd> This film is a wonderful fairy tale. Can you compare this fairy tale with the fairy tale world of Harry Potter?
Emma> The land of Dor feels quite magical, so I guess it has that in common with Harry Potter. And, also, The Tale of Despareaux is based on a book, by Kate DiCamillo. Apart from that, they’re very different stories and have very different messages. Despereaux has such a strong character and identity of its own. It was so fun for me to work in a completely different medium, doing an animated feature. I’d never done that before. It was a lot of fun and I’m massively proud of it.
MediaBlvd> Where are you with Harry Potter right now?
Emma> We begin filming the seventh one in February, and the sixth one will be released in July of next year.
MediaBlvd> With the seventh film being broken into two parts, are you going to work on it for a year?
Emma> Yes. We’re a long way off from a film being released or a film being made, so to be honest, I don’t have a huge amount to talk about.
MediaBlvd> What do you think the message of this movie is?
Emma> There are so many good ones. I’ve watched a lot of animated films. I love animated films, so I feel like I can speak with a bit of knowledge. It felt really different than anything that I’ve ever seen before because it felt like it wasn’t patronizing to children. The messages that are in the film feel really profound and philosophical, and I love the serious ending about forgiveness. I thought it was incredible that there is this chain reaction that happens, where the king was hurt, so he hurt his daughter, and Pea was hurting, so she hurt the servant girl and Roscuro. The whole thing just took off and, by one person saying sorry and really meaning it, everything could be restored. And, my other favorite message was that every girl is a princess. I thought that was such a beautiful message. In her father’s eyes, Mig is a princess. I just thought that was beautiful. I really love it. It works on lots of different levels. I don’t think it’s just a children’s film. I think anyone can go see it and get something from it.
MediaBlvd> Did you have to audition for Pea?
Emma> The audition process was, after I read the script, I was so desperate to play the role, and I was so excited and enthusiastic about it, that they very kindly gave me the role because I expressed so much interest in it. I really loved it!
MediaBlvd> How old were you when you started this film?
Emma> I think I was just 17.
MediaBlvd> Do you see any similarities between your character and your own life?
Emma> Yeah. Everyone who’s British lives in castles, in the middle of the countryside. Luckily, I never lost anyone close to me, so I can’t relate directly to that experience, and that’s probably the biggest one for Pea, but everyone knows how it feels to feel lonely and isolated, at times. It’s part of being human.
MediaBlvd> Was it difficult to transition back and forth between schoolgirl Hermione to Princess Pea?
Emma> The Tale of Despereaux was made over quite a long period of time, so I was brought in for a couple days, here and there. And then, they’d progress a bit further, or something would change, and I’d go in and do another three or four days. It was quite spread out. It was a long process, so in that sense, it wasn’t a very intense work climate that made it difficult. I would have paranoid moments where I would hear something in my own voice and go, “Gosh, do I sound like Hermione then?” I definitely have an awareness of it because I’ve played her for so long, and she is so distinctive and so much a part of me. But, Pea was more gentle. I instantly felt like a different person, playing her. I was worried about it, but it worked out okay.
