Emma Watson plans 1-year sabbatical to focus on activism

Prepare yourself to see less of Emma Watson.

On the big screen, anyway.

The Harry Potter star is taking a year-long sabbatical, focusing instead on her work with the United Nations' HeForShe gender-equality project as well as her own personal betterment.

She laid out her plans in an interview with feminist writer Bell Hooks for Paper Magazine: "I'm taking a year away from acting to focus on two things, really. My own personal development is one. I know that you read a book a day. My own personal task is to read a book a week, and also to read a book a month as part of my book club. ...I'm reading a lot this year, and I want to do a lot of listening. I want to listen to as many different women in the world as I can."

On her U.N. agenda: "Our HeForShe IMPACT champions are ten CEOs who for the first time will be releasing to the media what their companies look like internally. Big companies like Vodafone, Unilever and Tupperware will be standing up to the media and really acknowledging the issues within their own companies and talking about how they are planning to address these issues as HeForShe IMPACT champions ... We'll be making all of these statements completely transparent, which is huge. It's never been done before."

There will also be a HeForShe arts week and university tour, she added.

Emma Watson is a proud, card-carrying feminist

Speaking of school, Watson credits her best-known character, Hermione Granger, with  "giving me permission to be who I was." Who was that? "I was the girl in school whose hand shot up to answer the questions. I was really eager to learn in an uncool way. In a super uncool way, actually."

Not that she accepted that bit of self-awareness right away.

"At first I was really trying to say, 'I'm not like Hermione. I'm into fashion and I'm much cooler than she is,'" she explained. "And then I came to a place of acceptance. Actually, we do have a lot in common. There are obviously differences, but there are a lot of ways that I'm very similar. And I stopped fighting that!"

Hooks did call the movie version of Hermione out, however, likening her to a suburban housewife by the time of The Deathly Hallows, Part 2.

Watson assured her, "Well, she goes on to have a career. And she does go on to do good and interesting things."

Much like Watson herself — particularly in the year to come, we suspect.