Perhaps best known for playing the role of the young wizard Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, British actress, model and activist Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France on 15 April 1990 to English lawyers Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson. The family lived in Paris until Emma turned five, when after the divorce of her parents, she moved from Paris to Oxfordshire in South East England to live with her mother and brother. While in Oxford, she was admitted to the Dragon School and continued to study in the same school till 2003. But as she developed a passion for acting and wanted to be an actress from age six, she was also admitted to Stagecoach Theatre Arts, an extracurricular part-time theatre school, where she was taught singing, choreography and acting. At seven, Emma won a poem recitation competition and by the age of ten, she had performed and taken the lead in various Stagecoach productions and also appeared in several school plays. Nevertheless, after completing her studies at the Dragon School, she attended the Headington School, and in 1999, after eight consistent auditions, she bagged the role of Hermione Granger, one of the best friends of Harry Potter, in the fantasy film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2002), the first of the Harry Potter film series, which proved to be her career-defining role, and helped her to quickly rise to prominence.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, also known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in some countries including the USA, based on the bestselling novel of the same name authored by J.K. Rowling, was a huge box-office hit, and proved to be the highest-grossing film of 2001.

The film, appreciated by the critics, especially for the performances of the three leading young actors, was nominated for three Academy Awards and several BAFTA Awards, while Emma won the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film, sponsored by the Young Artist Foundation That was only the beginning of her successful acting career, and in the next year, she repeated her appearance in the same role of Hermione in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the second film of the series, which also became a critical and commercial success, and Emma earned an Otto Award from the German magazine Bravo for her performance in the film. Although the next film of the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) proved to be the lowest-grossing film in the entire series, Watson's performance in the film won her two Otto Awards and the Child Performance of the Year award from Total Film, a British film magazine.

However, the next film of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) reached a new milestone to become the highest-grossing international and worldwide release of the year, as well as nominated for an Academy Award and won a BAFTA Award. In addition, Emma Stone’s increasingly mature performance in the film was highly praised by the critics, and she won a bronze Otto Award for her touchingly earnest performance in her role.

After that, Emma also appeared in the same role in all the other subsequent films of the series, which include Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), followed by, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and finally, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). In fact, for nearly a decade she played the role of the ambitious, brainy Hermione Granger in all the films of the Harry Potter series, captivating a huge section of audiences worldwide, won multiple awards, solidified her status as a talented young actress, and helped her to become successful in her acting career.

After the Harry Potter series, Emma Watson’s first major role was in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), in which she appeared as Sam, a high school senior who befriends with an introverted and depressed freshman and helps him to face the real world. The film opened to favourable reviews, and Watson’s performance in the film was depicted as plausible and touching by the Evening Standard.

The next year she starred in Sofia Coppola’s satirical black comedy crime film, The Bling Ring (2013), in which she appeared as Nicki, a fictionalised version of a television personality, and one of the seven teenagers, who obsessed with fashion and fame, burgled the homes of celebrities in Los Angeles. While the film mostly received mixed reviews, Emma was almost unanimous praised by the critics for her performance in the film. In the same year, she also made an appearance as an exaggerated version of herself in This Is the End (2013), depicting the story about what happens to some best loved celebrities of Hollywood, when the apocalypse strikes during a party.

After that, Emma Watson starred, along with a galaxy of stars like Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Logan Lerman, Anthony Hopkins and others, in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), depicting the biblical tale of Noah and the ark. In the film, she played the role of Ila, a young woman who develops a close relationship with Noah's son, Shem, played by Douglas Booth. While Emma referred to her role in the film as physically very demanding, the film, set in timeless environments, was a box office success, but received mixed reviews.

Nevertheless, in the next year, Emma appeared in the historical thriller The Colonia (2015), and played the role of Lena, a young woman, whose desperate search for her abducted boyfriend took her to a sealed area in the South of the country, called Colonia Dignidad, and also appeared in Regression (2015), a psychological mystery film, directed by Alejandro Amenábar. Although both the films received generally negative reviews from the critics upon release, Emma bounced back with her role as Bell in the musical romantic fantasy film Beauty and the Beast (2017), which became a blockbuster hit, and also received generally positive reviews. In the same year, she also appeared as Mae Holland in the American techno-thriller film The Circle (2017), opposite Tom Hanks, which again received negative reviews, but was a moderate box office success.

In her only film in 2019, Emma Watson appeared as Meg March in Greta Gerwig’s coming-of age costume drama film Little Women (2019), depicting the story of four March sisters in the nineteenth-century Massachusetts. The film was critically acclaimed and garnered six Academy Award nominations with a win for Best Costume Design, two Golden Globe Award nominations, and five British Academy Film Award with a win, also for Best Costume Design.

In the midst of the busy schedule of her acting career, Emma Watson also continued her studies, and graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, with a bachelor's degree in English Literature in May 2014. In the same year, she was honoured by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2014, winning British Artist of the Year, and was also named as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. Apart from that, she has also become a fashion icon for young women worldwide. Her modelling work has included campaigns for Burberry and Lancôme, and she also lent her name to a line of clothing for People Tree. Emma Watson is an advocate for women’s rights and inspires the young women, embodying intelligence, courage. With her talent, poise, and dedication to public service, Emma Watson has navigated her public life graciously, and avoids discussing her intimate life to save her privacy. However, it is known that she has been dating Leo Robinton, an American businessman, since 2019.