The actress who is best known for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film franchise, was banned from driving for six months in July and had to pay £1,044 after driving her blue Audi at 38mph in a 30mph zone in Oxford on 31 July 2024.
Watson has been studying at the University of Oxford and had nine points on her license before the speeding incident occured.
Watson spoke about the incident on a recent appearance on the On Purpose podcast with Jay Shetty, "I was getting phone calls, like it's on the BBC. It’s on international, worldwide news. I was like, my shame is everywhere."
Watson revealed that she had recieved messages from people sharing their own driving mishaps and sympathised with the actress.
"When you work on movies, I don’t know if people know this, but they literally will not insure you to drive yourself to work. I’ve asked so many times. You have to be driven; it’s not a choice. Especially because they need you there, down to the minute basically depending on what they have going on," Watson said.
So, I went from basically only driving myself on weekends or during a holiday, to then, when I became a student, driving myself all the time and I did not have the experience, or skills clearly, which I now will and do," she continued.
Watson describes the incident as a journey thats "been humbling" as she explains that when she is on set she is able to do extremely complex stunts, however when she gets home she describes herself as unable to remeber her keys.
"It’s been a discovery and a journey that’s been humbling because on a movie set, I’m able to do all of these like extremely complex things, stunt, sing, dance, like do this thing, do that, whatever. And I’m like, 'Yep, don’t worry about it, guys’. And then I get home and I’m like, ‘OK Emma, you seem unable to remember your keys. You seem unable to keep yourself at 30mph in a 30mph speed limit. Like you don’t seem able to do some pretty basic life things’," she explains.
