Emma Watson appears to have a new man in her life!
On July 1, the actress, 34, was spotted kissing her Oxford University peer, Kieran Brown, while walking around the city near the campus. Watson is currently studying for her master’s degree while Brown is pursuing a PhD in 19th-century literature and economics.
In the photos, the Harry Potter star can be seen locking lips with Brown as they casually match in blue button-up tops during a recent outing. The pair also took their love public at a local bakery on Friday, as well, a source shared with the photographers.
“Emma is studying creative writing and his thesis is all about literary theory — so they have a lot to talk about,” one person with knowledge on the pair shared. “She looks so loved up with Kieran.”
The actress — who rarely comments on her personal life — has previously been linked to Oxford University students Will Adamowicz and Matt Janney, both of whom she met while taking part in the Visiting Student Program from 2011 to 2012.
Much like her booksmart Harry Potter character, Hermione Granger, Watson has made education one of the core focal points of her life. The actress and philanthropist also studied at the Ivy League Brown University and graduated in 2014 with an English literature degree.
In total, it took Watson a little over five years to complete her Brown degree after taking a brief pause to complete work on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which premiered in theaters in July 2011.
“As you know, I love Brown and I love studying pretty much more than anything but recently I’ve had so much to juggle that being a student AND fulfilling my other commitments has become a little impossible,” she wrote at the time in a message to fans.
In recent years, as she has stepped away from acting to once again return to her studies, Watson has shared that she “wasn’t very happy” while acting. The last feature film she starred in was Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women.
In an interview with Financial Times in 2023, the live-action Beauty and the Beast star explained her decision to take a hiatus by sharing that the profession — which she entered at the age of just nine — was not aligning with her life goals.
“I think I felt a bit caged,” Watson said. “The thing I found really hard was that I had to go out and sell something that I really didn’t have very much control over. To stand in front of a film and have every journalist be able to say, ‘How does this align with your viewpoint?’ It was very difficult to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process.”
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