Tavi Met Emma Watson And Now The Whole World Is The Better For It
This is what our two favourite young people talk about when they talk about things.
Tavi Gevinson, 17-year-old teen icon with ridiculously impeccable taste, just published a recent interview she completed with actress Emma Watson for her awesome website, Rookie Mag. The article is looooong, but great reading. Amidst all the standard celebrity interview stuff — which touches on the the production process behind the cult hit The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Watson’s The Bling Ring auditions, her experiences working with Sofia Coppola, and her general approach to her craft — there are some highlights that could only come out of an interview between a 17-year-old media mastermind and a 23-year-old acting superstar.
1. Setting the scene
Like a seasoned journalist, Tavi does a commendable job of setting the scene, even after her dad interrupts the whole thing. Ugh, daaaaad! Note the following introduction:
Her cat slinked around the chairs, her roommate introduced herself and served some banana bread they’d baked together. It felt sort of like a gals’ lunch, or something that sounds less like a yogurt commercial. Emma showed me her journals and we all watched her favorite TED talk.
My dad came by after a couple hours and we started saying our goodbyes when I spotted her record player. The needle rested next to Joni Mitchell’s Blue, and I couldn’t help thinking about what a turning point that album signified in Joni’s career and life.
I already wanna be friends with Emma Watson more than I ever did before.
_
2. Study breaks
Emma Watson goes to college, reads books, other smart things, blah… Yes, everybody knows that. But did you know what she does during her exam down-time?
Emma: My final is tomorrow, so I’ve been living like a hermit. The only thing I have been watching—such a guilty pleasure, it’s the perfect study break ’cause you just don’t have to concentrate too hard—is The Carrie Diaries. Have you been watching it?
Tavi: No!
Emma: [Laughs] So embarrassing to admit that! A 23-year-old that’s fully been watching The Carrie Diaries.
Tavi: Not even.
Emma: Yep. No, it’s absolutely true. That’s been my study break.
_
3. A discreet Gossip Girl diss
I always assumed young people legitimately loved Gossip Girl, the way old people loved Beverly Hills 90210, and older people loved MASH (or whatever). I clearly know nothing about young people.
Emma: [The Perks Of Being A Wallflower] just really spoke to my teenage experience and my friends’ teenage experiences. I felt like I’d watched too much Gossip Girl and was just dying to see something that spoke to the kinds of issues that I’d encountered as a young woman. It felt unique, and like someone had really written it from the heart.
_
4. Keeping diaries
How is this the first time that someone’s found out Emma Watson keeps hundreds of diaries?
Emma: I’ve always been interested in the idea of diaries. I must have 10 different personal diaries: I keep a dream diary, I keep a yoga diary, I keep diaries on people that I’ve met and things that they’ve said to me, advice that they’ve given me. I keep an acting journal. I keep collage books. They’ve given me a place in which I can try to figure myself out, because those kinds of ideas feel too personal to put out into the public or even discuss with anyone else.
_
5. An incredible sense of teenage self-awareness
There’s something truly odd about teenagers talking objectively about the experience of being teenagers. Kids these days, they grow up so fast, and their conversations sound like 30-somethings chatting to each other at a music festival.
Tavi: Just yesterday my friend emailed me an article called “Why You Never Truly Leave High School.”
Emma: It’s so true! It’s crazy!
Tavi: It’s horrible! I feel like it’s so easy to feel that way, but this article backs [that feeling] up with all these crazy studies about how certain fears really do stick with you into adulthood. It was kind of scarring. I think that even though you’re part of something larger—the rest of the world—that you can explore once you graduate, if there isn’t a place for you in high school it’s hard to remember that. It’s easy to feel like This is how I’ll be forever! You have to remind yourself, like, I’m 17. I’m going to change. Perks captured that fear so well but made me feel like it would still be OK.
Emma: It’s very hard, even though it’s true [that things will change], to overcome those feelings. I’ll go back to my hometown and I’ll go to the pub and see the guys I grew up with, and it’s so crazy—I immediately go back to who I was when I was 12, when I thought I was just totally inadequate.
_
In summary, very interesting article. When I was a teenager, I was watching Looney Tunes cartoons three hours a day and napping the other 13-14 hours that I wasn’t at school. Read the rest of the interview here (including a whole incredible section where the two discuss something called ‘Impostor Syndrome’). I’ll be in the corner further lamenting my dumbhead, wasted youth.