Emma Watson does want to get naked on film

The greatest shock in seeing Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is to notice how much the young actors have grown up. In fact, the fifth instalment is no longer a kids' movie, but a teen drama about characters who are rapidly coming of age.

In real life the three principals are maturing faster than their characters, with Daniel Radcliffe even appearing nude on the London stage. Rupert Grint's chest seems to be getting broader and his voice deeper and deeper, while Emma Watson is broadening her mind and her fashion sense and looking more womanly every day. She's now on the covers of magazines, appearing very grown up indeed and, as with most things, she is asserting a level of control.

"In interviews like this and when I'm working on Harry Potter I can dress myself, but the stylists on those shoots have a strong view of what they want you to look like," she says in London. "So sometimes it's a bit of a battle between what they want you to be and what I really am, so I'm like, 'Please take off the eyeliner', or 'Please don't put me in those awful shoes', or whatever it is."

Does she think of herself as glamorous?

"I can be if I want to be. I love dressing up, but it doesn't rule or dictate my life."

Growing up in front of the cameras is never easy and being a part of one of the most successful franchises in film history has meant Watson's life is not entirely her own. Take her hair, which is blonde; she tried to get it back to its natural colour and today it's streaked.

"I don't know how much of it is natural any more but this is sort of naturally my colour," she says tugging at her long golden locks.

But nothing prepared her for watching herself in the new film, which includes flashbacks to the previous movies.

"It's just like having your baby pictures blown up on a 20-foot (six-metre) screen and placed in 37 countries. It's sort of your worst nightmare. It's scary to see how we've all changed. You see yourself and you say, 'God, who is that girl?'."

The girl in question, whose adoring fans even have a website counting down to her 18th birthday in April, today looks older than in the movie, which was filmed last year. She appears relaxed in baggy Diesel jeans, her own lacy black top, a simple soft cardigan - which turns out to be Chanel - and Dolce & Gabbana pumps, which she is wearing so she can easily slip into the v-necked Alberta Ferretti dress for a photo call. She dons a double-stringed gold and beaded Chanel necklace for the cameras.

To her credit, Watson arrives at our interview unattended. While this might not seem out of the ordinary, for a young female star to arrive without a phalanx of publicists and image creators, make-up artists and general dogsbodies these days, is highly unusual.

"I prefer to feel like I'm handling the questions myself," she says in her clipped British tones. And then announces: "Let's spice it up a bit! Let's get a couple of difficult ones. I'm quite happy to answer them." She pauses for a moment, realising what she has just said. "You're going to ask me some [censored] of a question, you really are! Bad idea. I should never have said that."

Not old enough to attend nightclubs and with little time for letting loose, the charmingly natural actor hardly has any dirt on her as yet, and will surely never be a Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears.

"You either choose to have your first cigarette and your first glass of wine in a safe environment with your close friends or you can choose to do it in a nightclub in the middle of London. You can actually live a low-key, normal life where the press don't get a chance to know about it."

Clearly today, though, Watson hankers to be a little provocative so I ask her about the prospect of kissing Grint, her suitor in the sixth film, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, which starts filming in September. Director David Yates describes it as being about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

"Kissing Rupert's going to be sooo awkward," Watson says, screwing up her cute rosy-cheeked face. "I'm trying not to think about it ... it's all part of the job I guess. Don't tell him I said that. Rupert's lovely. Girls would probably give their left arm to be in my position, so I'm certainly not complaining."

But he's a grunge-loving dude and simply not the kind of boy she's into.

"No, he's not my type," she says.

What is she looking for in a guy? "I love someone who can make me laugh ... who makes me feel I can be myself around them. Confidence is good; arrogance is not. Someone I can really talk to, who doesn't bore me, is genuine, just interesting. Someone I can relax with."

Her list is long. "It's bad isn't it? You have such high expectations. The other way you can look at it is that if I list a lot of attributes, then I'm sort of widening my scope. You don't have to have all the attributes - just one or two will suffice."

The offspring of British lawyer parents, Watson spent her first five years growing up in Paris, and has made regular trips there since. "I went over to Paris to sort out the clothes for this junket and I have a great nostalgia for it. I really love it. It feels a bit like home."

The main reason for her regular Parisian jaunts has been to visit her French grandmother. So it was fun to go for herself this time, to visit the house of Chanel.

"Chanel have been very kind and have lent me a lot of stuff for this particular junket. I've always loved how classic and how beautiful their clothing is and how original. My mum always wore Chanel, but I love other designers too. I think Chloe is great. Alberta Ferretti is really lovely, AgnesB has some younger funky stuff which I really like. Converse shoes are great."

Watson had never acted before Harry Potter came along. "I was extremely naive and in a way it was good to be really nervous. I came to realise that Maggie Smith was a pretty good actress, she was just really nice to me. I wouldn't have been able to come to the set if I didn't feel completely safe."

As with all the young actors, she brought a lot of herself to Hermione. "We're both feminists, we're both very stubborn, both very determined and quite loyal. If I have a friend then I stay through to the end." (She maintains a tight group of friends from school and considers her two co-stars like brothers.) "Obviously I'm a bit geeky, a bit nerdy like she is, underneath it all - we both love school. I love to learn."

Recently rumours were flying that Watson would not return for the last two films, as she was concerned for her studies. (At school she studies English literature and she would like to pursue a combined degree in English literature and philosophy at university.) She now says she was taking her time to work out her contract so she can do both. When Harry Potter is over she's keen to continue acting, too.

"I think Emma could have a great career," says Yates. "If she's smart enough to choose the right material she could be fantastic. We haven't seen a fraction of what she's capable of yet."

Watson says she wants to find something she really believes in. "What I will do next will be really anticipated and will be taken as the direction I'm going to go in. So I feel that pressure," she says.

Radcliffe has been quite clear about going against his Harry Potter image by making his West End debut in the critically lauded Equus, which made headlines because of his full-frontal nudity. The pressure for actresses to disrobe is of course far greater.

"If I feel that nudity is essential to the story I'll do it," says Watson. "But I'm not going to get my kit off for something that I don't really believe in."

Was she surprised by Radcliffe's disrobing? "Yes of course! I just sort of went, 'You're mad, absolutely mad'. But when I went to see it I was blown away."

As for the future, Watson is learning to drive. Eventually she says she would like to buy a house - and hang a lot of artwork on the walls.

"It's quite hard to imagine my life without Harry Potter; it's sort of hard to remember my life before. It's sort of completely taken over my life. I say that, but I've worked hard to make sure that hasn't happened. While obviously it's a huge part of me, it doesn't define me. I know who I am aside from this. But it feels strange that one day it will be over. In a way though I feel it will never be over ... the books will always be loved and the films will come on every Christmas and it'll keep living on in kids' imaginations and adults' imaginations for many years to come."

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