London International Airport.
Emma Watson was chatting with Mimi Yang.
"Mimi, I'm still so annoyed. Why didn't Martin cast me in that role instead of you? Is my acting somehow worse than yours?" Little Hermione huffed, clearly frustrated.
Mimi smirked triumphantly. "It was Martin's choice. If you've got a problem, take it up with him!"
That's right—Mimi had flown thousands of miles from Los Angeles to London not just to visit her best friend but also to rub it in Emma's face a little.
"Hmph, don't get too smug," Emma shot back, grinning. "I'm about to graduate from Brown, and I've decided to head to Hollywood afterward. By then, I'll be the one close to Martin while you're off in Ching Chong country. Heh, we'll see who he's tighter with."
In the original timeline, Emma Watson didn't graduate from Brown. Instead, she took a leave of absence, transferred to Oxford, and pursued a graduate degree in creative writing.
Emma's words hit Mimi like a jolt, stirring a sense of threat. Maybe I should just move to the U.S. and build my career there, she thought.
Emma scored a point, feeling smug, when a thought struck her. "Oh, did you hear? Last year, Rupert—Rupert Grint—shot a movie called Cherry Bomb. It hit theaters last month, and I went to see it. That guy was buck naked for half the film!"
"Oh my God, talk about an eyesore!"
Mimi frowned, confused. "Rupert's not that out of shape, is he?"
"It's not about his body," Emma clarified. "It's just… Rupert's like a brother to me. Imagine watching your grown-up little brother stark naked on screen. Wouldn't that burn your eyes?"
Mimi shrugged. "Can't relate. Only child, no siblings."
Then she asked, "What about Daniel? How's he doing lately?"
This year, the final Harry Potter film was set to release. The three main actors had grown from kids to adults and were starting to chart their own paths.
Emma wasn't in a rush—she had her studies to finish, and with Martin's backing, she wasn't worried about landing roles.
Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, since 2007, had been taking on projects outside Harry Potter.
Unlike Rupert's film ventures, Daniel chose the stage.
"Daniel? Oh, that guy's in a play called Equus," Emma said, her expression turning odd. "You might not know this, but Daniel seems so sweet, but he's crazier than Rupert."
"How so?" Mimi asked, intrigued.
"In 2007, at a West End theater in London, Daniel performed the last ten minutes of Equus stripping off every piece of clothing, standing completely naked in front of the audience. Goddamn, I was there in the crowd. What sin did I commit to have to see both my brothers' junk? Damn it, damn it, damn it."
Emma fumed, half-laughing, half-horrified.
Emma burst out laughing. "You won't believe this—after that Equus show, the Harry Potter production office was flooded with protest letters. Some girl named Micky Triss wrote that Daniel ruined her childhood. Hilarious!"
Mimi cracked up too. "What was he thinking? He's Harry Potter, the character who grew up with so many of us!"
Emma fell quiet for a moment before speaking softly. "Maybe that's exactly why. Not just Daniel, but Rupert and me too—we've all been chained to our Harry Potter roles for too long. We all have this urge to break free. And Daniel… he's probably the wildest of us three."
In the original timeline, Daniel Radcliffe went all out to shatter his "Harry Potter" image, taking on a string of bizarre roles—
In the horror flick The Woman in Black, he played a lawyer investigating a haunted village. In Horns, he was an angry, demonic antihero. In Kill Your Darlings, he portrayed the queer poet Allen Ginsberg. In Victor Frankenstein, he was a hunchbacked monster. In Now You See Me 2, he played a neurotic tech heir.
His most infamous role? In Swiss Army Man, he was a corpse with "Swiss Army knife" utility—a body whose leftover fluids quenched the parched protagonist, whose stiff limbs doubled as an axe, whose rotting gases powered a makeshift fishing gun. The film blended dark humor with heart-wrenching moments, earning praise as "the year's most poignant comedy."
One critic remarked: "If Leonardo DiCaprio's self-punishing performance in The Revenant set the Oscar bar, Radcliffe's not far off."
Truthfully, in the original timeline, Daniel Radcliffe was the most relentless in reinventing himself.
You could hear it in one of his quotes—
In 2011, when the final Harry Potter film, Deathly Hallows: Part 2, hit theaters, closing a magical era, fans wept at the premiere. But Daniel was eerily calm, quoting King Louis XIV's dying words to his subjects:
"Why are you crying? Did you think I'd live forever?"
By then, Radcliffe was no longer the round-glasses-wearing, spell-casting boy from Hogwarts. He was a scruffy, full-bearded man.
"Isn't having an iconic role a good thing? Does it have to be so extreme?" Mimi asked, puzzled, even sensing a bit of humility in Emma's tone.
Emma shook her head. "Having an iconic role is great, but when it shackles you for eight years, it turns sour. When everyone sees you as Hermione no matter what you play, honestly, it doesn't feel good."
Mimi suddenly thought of Liu Yifei, her own best friend, who seemed to face a similar trap—everyone saw her as the "Fairy Goddess" no matter the role. But Yifei didn't seem eager to break out. Was that the difference between them?
So, do I want to be an "idol" or an "actor"?