Emma Watson

Biography:  Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in France on April 15, 1990. At a school in England, she took the lead role in several plays including Arthur: The Young Years and The Happy Prince. Besides plays, Emma participated in other school activities including the Daisy Pratt Poetry Competition, in which she won first place at the age seven. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) was her debut into the world of professional acting. Competing against many other girls for the role of Hermione Granger, she didn't expect to get the part. Away from the cinematic world, Emma enjoys playing hockey most of all and she also likes debating. Although her hair is brown in the movie, she's naturally a blonde. She once dressed up as a witch for Halloween, but she had no idea that years later, she would be playing one in the Harry Potter movie. Her lawyer parents, Jacqueline and Chris, are divorced. Emma lives with her mother and younger stepbrothers. Her favourite celebrities are Julia Roberts, Goldie Hawn, John Cleese and Sandra Bullock. Her favorite Harry Potter book is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. She served on a jury to select the 2004 teen-aged film-makers' First Light Film Awards. The ceremony was held in London's Leicester Square. Other jurors included Pierce Brosnan, Kenneth Branagh, and Samantha Morton. At thirteen, after being a teenager for just ten months, she was placed tenth in The Hottest Female Stars in February 2004 for some magazine that did a poll. She was named after her paternal grandmother, who after marriage, became Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson. She can speak some French. At the age of fifteen, she became the youngest person to appear on the cover of Teen Vogue magazine. She and her Harry Potter co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint were named #9 on Entertainment Weekly's Best Entertainers of the Year in 2005. She achieved eight A* and two A passes in her GCSEs (exams English school pupils take in their last compulsory year of secondary school). She attended the Dragon School, a renowned preparatory school in Oxford, between September 1995 and July 2001. She then went on to attend Headington School, a private all-girls school, between September 2001 and July 2006. Her parents are both English but her paternal grandmother was French. Emma lived in France until the age of five, when her family returned to England. While filming the third and fourth Harry Potter films, she took dance lessons. She has now gained a Silver Award for freestyle dance and street jazz. She enjoys playing field hockey, netball and tennis (for school and local teams), skiing, painting, cooking, singing, and dancing (has twice competed with her school in Rock Challenge 2006 and 2007). She was ranked #15 on the Forbes List of The 20 Top-Earning Young Superstars (2007). She was named #26 on Empire Magazine's 100 Sexiest Movie Stars (2007). She was ranked #3 on Yahoo And in the list of 10 most popular stars of 2007 on Yahoo Movies (2007). Her favorite movie is Notting Hill (1999). Her favourite television show is "Friends" (1994). Her favorite actor is Johnny Depp. Her favourite actress is Julia Roberts. She was ranked #28 on Entertainment Weekly's '30 Under 30' the actress list (2008). And was ranked #94 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2008 list. She is a fan of the Golden Compass (2007) and the rest of the fantasy trilogy 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman. She was ranked #4 by Portrait Magazine for favourite celebrities by fans' vote. Her Harry Potter co-star Bonnie Wright had also ranked #5. Her parents divorced in 1995; both parents have since remarried. On her father's side, she has a younger half-brother Toby, born 2003, and half-sisters (identical twins) Lucy and Nina, born in 2004. Lucy and Nina played the younger version of her character Pauline in Ballet Shoes (2007) (TV). She also has two stepbrothers from her mother's remarriage.