Do you see a lot of differences between Hermione and Princess Pea?
Watson: Hermione is a real tomboy. Princess Pea is very graceful, and she's more subtle. She's much more girly. I just felt really sorry for her. She's very alone.

I have a few questions about those other films you're sometimes associated with.
Watson: [Laughs.] Oh, those ones no one's heard of?

Have you seen "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" yet?
Watson: No! I'm dying over here. I literally can't wait any longer. I think I'll get to see it in January.

What's next for you?
Watson: I'm attached to a film called "Napoleon and Betsy," which will hopefully get shot in 2010. I've got the colossal final book ["Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"] to finish off, and I'm going to university in September. I'm looking at scripts and auditioning. I'm very excited to do roles beyond "Potter." It's a very exciting time for me.

Where are you going to school?
Watson: I may stay in the U.K., but I'm also looking at universities in the States, on the East Coast probably. I've applied already to some schools over there.

What kind of roles are you looking for after "Harry Potter" is done?
Watson: I want when people look back on my career for them to not be able to put me in a box and say, "She always played this kind of role." I want to do everything. I would love to be in a musical. I want to sing. I want to do a crazy Baz Luhrmann "Moulin Rouge!" sort of thing. I'd love to do a period piece. I'd love to do a French film. There are so many options out there!

What about theater? Would you ever take it all off onstage as Daniel Radcliffe's been doing in "Equus"?
Watson: I think Dan is incredibly brave. I would be completely terrified!

“Um . . . I asked for a bed in my dressing room recently,” she says in her crisp, fluttery voice. Well, what about buying the ski chalet for her 18th? “That’s a family thing,” she says, smiling. “We’re all going up there for Christmas. I love skiing.” And asking all the boys at Stowe to stand up for her when she came into the room? Blank horror and incomprehension. “No. I would never. Can you ever imagine me saying that? More than anything, I just want to be treated like everyone else.”

“I’m at a strange age,” says Watson, wrinkling her brow and asking for an orange juice, which doesn’t arrive. (She is simply too lovely to ask twice.) “I’m not a woman yet, but I’m not a girl any more. [Film companies] say, ‘Oh, in a couple of years you’ll be perfect for this.’ I’ll be like, yeah, but I want to be studying English then, so it’s going to be quite tough to choose between the two.”

“I’m going to have a battle on my hands, because after Harry Potter has finished, I don’t know,” she says. “I definitely want to go to university.”

Witness her brilliant campaign as an eight-year-old to get the part of Hermione. “I rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed,” she recalls. “When I got the part, people were like, ‘Why you?’ And I just remember seeing a L’Oréal advert, and coming out with an American accent, ‘Because I’m worth it.’ That was my answer then. My answer now is . . . I don’t know, I just really got her.”

“The truth is, I’m not very cool,” she shrugs. She’s not really into stepping out of line — she has never been tempted to date Daniel or Rupert, for example. “The public are desperate for it,” she rolls her eyes. “It would literally be like [a royal marriage]. Luckily, luckily . . . It would be such a nightmare.” She believes in love at first sight, but won’t be drawn on the boy she’s dating at the moment. I suspect he is a “civilian” from among her Oxford friends — she has, in the past, dated someone from a local boys’ school. Is she in love? “I don’t know,” she says, before going a bright shade of cerise.