Emma Watson is the cover girl for the August issue of Elle UK. The magazine hasn’t hit the stands yet, but several sources have bits and pieces of the cover interview. Now, I’m not any kind of Harry Potter-loonie, but I have grown to like all of the young stars of the franchise just from reading interviews with them. Daniel Radcliffe seems like a very smart, interesting young man, and Rupert Grint just seems like a ginger hottie. Despite rumors that Emma Watson is a little diva, I tend to think she comes across as a nice girl in interviews. The worst I can say about her is that she tries a bit too hard to come across as worldly or sophisticated. But you know what? I was like that when I was her age, so I get it. She’s still figuring out her place and how to give self-effacing interviews, and she does it with grace.

Perhaps Emma seems to have such a good head on her shoulders because her parents kept her pretty limited when she was a child actor. Emma admits to Elle (this part of the interview via Digital Spy) that she had no idea how big her paychecks were from the Harry Potter films:

Emma Watson has admitted that she did not know how much money she was earning from the Harry Potter movies until she was 18. The actress, who plays Hermione Granger in the magical franchise, told Elle that she took a bank course to help her cope with the reported 10 million pounds that she took control of on her birthday.

“My dad never told me how much money I was earning. Then, when I hit 18, he was like, ‘I want you to understand that your money isn’t some kind of abstract concept. I want you to have a feel for what it’s worth and what you can do with it’,” she explained.

“The course was interesting, I’m glad I did it, but the truth is I’d just like to pretend that [the money] doesn’t exist. It’s amazing how many children are aware from such a young age about money being important or supposedly impressive.”

She added: “I really don’t have time to spend my money. Sometimes my bank manager calls me to say, ‘You haven’t used your card in a while and now you’re using it – no-one’s stolen it have they?!'”

Watson can next be seen in Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, which hits cinemas next month.

[From Digital Spy]

That’s a great idea – making your kid take a banking class before they get access to a boatload of money. I’d bet that even without the banking class, Emma wouldn’t be pouring through her money, though. In another snippet from the Elle interview, Emma talks about how she doesn’t want to be too generic. She also basically says that Natalie Portman is her role model:

Emma Watson insists she isn’t your “classic” public schoolgirl — and she hates it when people judge her. She insists her clean-cut reputation is inaccurate.

“I’m not your classic public schoolgirl because I’ve been brought up in Watford,” she dished.

“And I’ve met and worked with people from a million different backgrounds… You can’t please everyone. And that’s something that I’m learning.”

“I don’t want other people to decide who I am. I want to decide that for myself. I want to avoid becoming too styled and too ‘done’ and too generic. You see people as they go through their career and they just become more and more like everyone else. They start out with something individual about them but it gets lost.”

“Natalie Portman is an exception. I’m in awe of how she’s handled herself.”

[From Showbiz Spy]

A lot of the younger actors have started citing Natalie Portman as their role model – she’s like the 21st century version of Jodie Foster. But for every Jodie Foster or Natalie Portman, there are a dozen Lindsay Lohans. So which will Emma end up as? My guess is something in between. Maybe I’m being too hard on Emma, but I don’t really see her career going gangbusters after Harry Potter is over. My guess is that Emma will most likely carve out a nice film and television career in Britain, but nothing like Jodie Foster or Natalie Portman.

Thanks to Superficial Diva for the pictures.