The actors who played Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the eight Harry Potter films have a difficult road ahead of them. Their faces instantly recall the characters they embodied over the course of their childhoods. Everyone remembers the curse of Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker and then faded away. Daniel Radcliffe has focused on stage work ("Equus," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying") and the brooding stage-to-screen adaptation of The Woman in Black. Rupert Grint has starred in a few small (daring) films about British youth. Emma Watson made a small appearance as a romantically spurned costume designer in My Week with Marilyn. She'll have her first post-Potter leading role in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is set for a release this fall.
Watson will play a cool outcast senior who, along with her friend, takes in a "wallflower" underclassman. The modern, occasionally daring role (at least if they stay true to the book) will help her carve a different path from her role as the uptight, book-smart Hermione, but it still shares some similarities to Potter. The coming-of-age tale will be targeted towards young adults, it's set in a school, and it does have a bit of a underdog kids vs. the world feel to it.
Whereas Radcliffe and Grint have dived into projects with nudity, drug use, a hitman, and sex, Watson's next film choice feels tamer. She may delve further into risque subject matter with Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, which centers on a few high students who rob celebrities for their designer clothes, but she'll still be playing a student. The 22-year-old actress won't be able to play high schoolers forever, but her recent attempt to do something different fell through. She was set to play a suicidal young writer in Your Voice in My Head, but the project went on hold once Harry Potter director David Yates dropped out.
Even in the Perks of Being a Wallflower trailer, some of the jokes fall flat for me, but it also communicates a genuine and spirited tone--not too downer, raunchy, or superficial. The 1999 book by Stephen Chbosky has proven consistently popular since its publication, and it's had time to grab a decade's worth of young adults who fell hard for the book's take on high school. That, along with Watson, may be the key to the film's box-office appeal.
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