Harry Potter star tells teens to be who they are

HONG KONG (AP) — Harry Potter star Emma Watson’s (photo) advice to teenagers is: “Feel comfortable in your own skin.”

The 21-year-old Watson, on her second visit to Hong Kong, declined to comment on reports suggesting her relationship with boyfriend, actor Johnny Simmons, is on the rocks.

The British actress who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series of movies arrived in Hong Kong the other day on a business trip.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, she said as a role model for teenagers, her best advice to them is: “Be true to who you are and do the best to feel comfortable in your own skin. You are all right exactly as you are.”

About 100 fans, holding up Harry Potter books or fashion magazines with Watson on the cover, greeted the actress who wore a blue sequined dress.

Watson was born in Paris to Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both British lawyers.

Watson has a French grandmother and lived in Paris until the age of five. Following her parents’ divorce, she moved with her mother and younger brother to Oxfordshire

From the age of six, Watson had wanted to become an actress and for a number of years she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theater school where she studied singing, dancing and acting.

 By the age of 10, she had performed in various Stagecoach productions and school plays, including Arthur: The Young Years and The Happy Prince but she had never acted professionally before the Harry Potter series.

“I had no idea of the scale of the film series,” she stated in a 2007 interview with Parade.”

“If I had I would have been completely overwhelmed,” she says.