Originally appeared on E! Online
Emma Watson is trading in a broom for a boat.
While the “Harry Potter” actress’ character Hermione never played Quidditch, the 35-year-old has shown she has an incredible athletic ability as she’s taken up rowing while at Oxford University.
Watson, who began studying for a graduate degree at the school in 2023, was spotted competing on the Oxford rowing team for the university Summer Eights rowing regatta on the Thames River, per photos from Daily Mail published May 31.
She was spotted in a white baseball hat, sunglasses and a collared white tank while guiding her crew in her role as the coxswain, using her mini mic to coordinate eight rowers who donned purple face paint and black and purple unitard-style rowing uniforms.
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And athletics aren’t the only thing that’s been keeping Watson busy these days. While she’s been hitting the books rather than the carpets in recent years, the actress made time to travel to France weeks before the regatta, where she made a rare public appearance at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Her attendance marked her return to the event after a 12-year absence, as she last appeared in 2013 to promote her Sofia Coppola film, “The Bling Ring.”
But after spending a decade filming the eight “Harry Potter” films, Watson has mostly stayed out of the spotlight, turning her attention to academia and enrolling at Brown University for a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature. Nearly 10 years later, she decided she wasn’t quite done studying, and enrolled at Oxford. In between, she starred in 2019’s “Little Women,” despite largely stepping away from acting otherwise—a choice that was intentional for Watson.
“I’m just so glad that I did,” Watson told British Vogue in a December 2023 interview, “because I have this feeling of having my own voice and creative space and sovereignty in some way that I don’t think I did before—more autonomy.”
She continued, “I’m so glad that I allowed things to be messy for a minute and to really allow myself to not know [what’s next], because the knowing that I’ve come to, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
