Emma Watson will not be driving a car any time soon, it seems.
Multiple U.K. outlets reported on Wednesday, July 16, that the 35-year-old Harry Potter alum has been banned from driving a car following a 2024 speeding infraction. Watson apparently had nine points on her license before going 38mph in a 30mph zone last July.
A five-minute hearing, which took place on Wednesday, ruled that Watson would also have to pay £1,044 (about $1,400) in fines as well. (Watson was not present for the hearing, the outlets reported.)
Us Weekly has reached out to Watson’s team for comment.
Watson has been staying mainly out of the public eye while working on her master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Oxford. The actress rose to fame after playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film franchise for a decade from 2001 to 2011. Her last acting role was as Meg March in the 2019 movie Little Women.
Emma Watson Says She Hasn’t ‘Stepped Away From Acting’ After 5-Year Film Hiatus
She spoke candidly about taking a break from Hollywood in a 2023 interview.
“I wasn’t very happy, if I’m being honest,” Watson told the U.K.’s Financial Times at the time. “I think I felt a bit caged.”
The actress said she felt it hard to relinquish creative control.
“The thing I found really hard was that I had to go out and sell something that I really didn’t have very much control over,” Watson continued. “To stand in front of a film and have every journalist be able to say, ‘How does this align with your viewpoint?’ It was very difficult to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process.”
‘Harry Potter’ Stars: Where Are They Now?
Watson felt she was “held accountable” in a “really frustrating” way.
“I didn’t have a voice, I didn’t have a say,” she added. “I started to realize that I only wanted to stand in front of things where if someone was going to give me flak about it, I could say, in a way that didn’t make me hate myself, ‘Yes, I screwed up, it was my decision, I should have done better.’”
While Watson is focused on her studies amid her break from acting, she also launched the Renais Gin company alongside brother Alex Watson. She also dipped her toe into the production side of Hollywood by directing the 2022 Prada ad campaign.
“People always told me I should direct and produce, even when I was on Potter,” she said during the same Financial Times interview, noting that a return to acting is “absolutely” in her future.
