Actress Emma Watson has spoken out about the contrasting beauty standards faced by male and female performers in Hollywood, describing the expectations placed on women as “impossible”.
Appearing on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, the Harry Potter star admitted she feels frustrated when comparing her own experience to that of her male co-stars. “I feel so envious of my male co-star who can put on a T-shirt and just show up without this whole rigmarole of becoming acceptable enough to be on camera,” she said.
Watson praised Pamela Anderson for recently rejecting industry conventions, adding: “Kudos to Pamela Anderson for recently doing the thing because the amount of courage that it takes to do that, I cannot begin to even express to you.”
Image: Instagram/pamelaanderson
The actress likened the pressure of Hollywood’s beauty standards to competing on a reality show. “It’s wild. The expectations are insane. It’s impossible. The beauty expectations are so difficult to reach, and the bar gets raised all the time, so you’re constantly on a survivor island game show beauty nightmare,” she explained, as reported by femalefirst.co.uk.
Watson, who has stepped back from acting in recent years to pursue a doctorate at the University of Oxford, also reflected on her changing relationship with the film industry. Speaking to Hollywood Authentic, she admitted she misses performing but not the promotional demands that come with it.
“In some ways, I really won the lottery [with acting], and what happened to me is so unusual. But a bigger component than the actual job itself is the promotion and selling of that piece of work, this piece of art. The balance of that can get quite thrown off,” she said.
The 34-year-old added: “I think I’ll be honest and straightforward, and say: I do not miss selling things. I found that to be quite soul-destroying. But I do very much miss using my skill set, and I very much miss the art. I just found I got to do so little of the bit that I actually enjoyed.”
