Emma Watson once revealed that everyone wanted to be on set to witness her ‘incest’ scene during filming for the Harry Potter film franchise.
The actress even went as far as labelling it as ‘the most horrible thing’ she’d ever had to do.
While filming the final instalment of the famous wizarding movie series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Hermione Granger – played by Watson – had to get close with another character.
Harry Potter fans knew that the scene was a long time coming, but the experience was completely different for the two actors involved.
Watson spoke up during an interview at the time, revealing what it was like to have a long romantic kiss with Rupert Grint, who played her on-screen best friend Ron Weasley.
She admitted that the actor was like a brother to her, though it is good to note that the two don’t actually have any kind of relation – but this didn’t alleviate any of the weirdness for the actors.
Watson told Jonathan Ross back in 2012: “We did the kiss two weeks ago, and it was the most horrible thing I’ve ever had to do.
The pair felt weird and awkward while filming the intimate scene. (Warner Bros.)
“Not because Rupert isn’t lovely, and there are millions of girls out there who would probably chop their left arm off to kiss him, but it just felt like incest. That’s the only way I can describe it.
“The great thing about kissing is that you close your eyes, so it was fine when I was actually kissing him because I had my eyes closed. So I could not think about the fact that it was him.
“The worst bit is when we had to open our eyes and look at each other because then it was just like, and then we couldn’t keep going.”
Speaking during the more recent HBO reunion special, Return To Hogwarts – which aired a decade later in 2022 – Watson sat down with her former co-star to look back at that time.
And it seemed that her feelings towards their kiss hadn’t changed a bit.
“Obviously us kissing was the most horrifying thing either of us have ever had to go through”, she said, to which Grint agreed with a simple, and rather awkward, “Yeah.”
The pair reunited during the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter film. (HBO Max)
Watson then revealed that the scene ‘was meant to be this dramatic makeout, but we [her and Rupert] just kept laughing’.
She then added that that the kiss ‘felt wrong on every level’, because her, Grint and Daniel Radcliffe ‘are so much siblings’.
Joining the pair for a chat, Radcliffe, who famously played the titular role in the franchise, admitted that he didn’t really help things at the time.
By his own admission he was a bit of a ‘d**k’ about the whole thing.
“I did not make this better, because I’ve been told significantly that I was just being an absolute d**k about this and was like, ‘I’m gonna come on set and watch you guys kiss,'” he recalled. “I’m sorry about that, guys.”
Watson then added: “Everyone wanted to be on set for it. ‘Cause everyone was like, ‘This is gonna be good, guys’.”