AceShowbiz - Emma Watson is not retiring from the movie industry. Despite taking a hiatus for five years, the Hermione Granger depicter in the "Harry Potter" film series insisted that she hasn't stepped away from acting.

The 33-year-old set the record straight when sitting down with British Vogue. "I don't see myself as having stepped away from acting," she said. "I just see myself as wanting to expand what I do and being able to be in things that I have written or directed or produced."

Noting that writing and directing "has been really amazing," Emma added, "I just realized how much I loved it and that I wanted to keep doing that." The actress continued, "And so I actually study now as well."

Still, Emma isn't planning to return to the silver screen soon. "To really be at the start of a project takes time," she stressed. "Films can be decades in the making, finding it and writing it and putting it together. I don't see it as a closing down. I see it as an opening up."

Emma hasn't really appeared on screen since the 2019 movie "Little Women" and she appreciates the control she's regained over her life. In a December 2023 interview with Britain's Vogue magazine, she shared, "I'm just so glad that I did because I have this feeling of having my own voice and creative space and sovereignty in some way that I don't think I did before - more autonomy."

"I'm so glad that I allowed things to be messy for a minute and to really allow myself to not know [what's next]," she further elaborated, "because the knowing that I've come to, I wouldn't trade that for anything."

Emma admitted she was struggling throughout her time in the spotlight but quickly understood acting success was no guarantee of happiness. She said, "I get a front row seat [with] some of the most successful, beautiful, incredible people in the world."