Emma Watson has spoken up for the first time about her reaction to seeing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in London last summer.

With the new live-action Beauty and the Beast, Emma Watson reprised the role originated by Paige O’Hara in the 1991 animated film, but she has also been on the other side of the coin, handing off the role of J.K. Rowling’s Hermione Granger to Noma Dumezweni for the London play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to Noma Dumezweni.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actress revealed that seeing the future of the character she has played in eight films was pretty overwhelming, and Emma Watson admitted to sobbing joyful tears when she witnessed Noma’s performance.

Emma Watson sheds a tear at the premiere of the last Harry Potter (Pic: PA)

“It was so strange. It was so emotional seeing Noma [Dumezweni]’s performance in a way that I had not anticipated at all,’ Watson says. “She walked in the room, and I just spontaneously burst into tears. … I had played that character so intensely up until that point, that to know that Hermione was going to be okay — I know it sounds crazy — but to know that everything turned out all right and everything in the world was okay, that there was someone else carrying her on and carrying her forward … it was just such a relief.”

Watson added that Deathly Hallows: Part 2 concluded with “a little flash forward,” but Hermione “kind of gets stuck in time at 20 years old, 19 years old. … I wanted [Hermione] to have a future.”

Watson went to see Dumezweni after the show and immediately felt a connection with the elder actor due to their common character.

“The weird thing is that Noma was a complete stranger, but I felt like I had known her forever,” Watson adds. “There was just an instant intimacy and connection.”