Emma Watson binged on reality TV for new role

Emma Watson has revealed that she prepared for her Bling Ring role by watching 'a ton of reality TV'.

The former Harry Potter star plays Nicki, the pole-dancing 'Valley vixen' of the notorious Hollywood Bling Ring, a group of teens who reportedly stole from celebrity homes in 2008 and 2009, in Sofia Coppola's new film.

"I was doing an English course. So I would go from reading Virginia Woolf to [watching] Kim Kardashian. I kind of loved it, this mix of super-high and super-low culture," she told the UK edition of GQ magazine.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower actress admitted she hates her character, but chose to take the role so she wouldn't be typecast.

"When I read the script and I realised that essentially it was a meditation on fame and what it's become to our society, I had to do it. The character is everything that I felt strongly against - she's superficial, materialistic, vain, amoral. She's all of these things and I realised that I hated her," she said.

The 22-year-old added: "How do you play someone you hate? But I found it really interesting and it gave me a whole new insight into what my job, or my role as an actress, could be."

Emma - who is dressed up as Nicki on the magazine's May cover - said that she wanted to avoid being pigeonholed in period dramas or 'Harry Potter' -like films.

"I was open-minded about doing anything, but the one thing I didn't want to do was get myself into a corset because I was worried I'd never get out again," she said.

"I knew it would be a really comfortable thing to do, but I felt.... I had to dive into something really different. This has been a really big departure for me; it's a really big character."

 

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.