She’s not Hermione anymore. Emma Watson — the 20-year-old actress who has portrayed Harry Potter’s studious BFF, Hermione Granger, in six films over the past decade — has shorn off her character’s long tresses in favor of a short pixie haircut. “Oh my God, it was the most liberating thing!” she tells EW.com. “The stylist just grabbed the back of my hair and took a whole ponytail of hair out. It felt amazing. I love it.” The chic, gamine cut, created by New York stylist Rodney Cutler of Cutler Salon and seen in this exclusive Polaroid from EW’s upcoming Fall Movie Preview issue, might not seem like a huge deal to most 20-year-olds. But Watson has had to sport essentially the same hairstyle for ten years while she played Hermione. “I missed all that experimentation that most teenagers go through,” she says. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was about 16, so as soon as I had the chance I was like, ‘Right. This is it.’” Watson, who’s about to enter her sophomore year at Brown University, finished shooting the final two Potter movies this summer — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 will be released Nov. 19, 2010, and Part 2 next summer, on July 15.
