Who is Chris Watson? Whenever Emma Watson is asked how she navigated the sheer force of her Harry Potter fame growing up, her answer always ties back to her parents, Chris Watson and Jacqueline Luesby.
Emma was born in Paris in 1990 and shot to superstardom when she landed the role of Hermione Granger in the movie adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. “My parents helped me a lot,” she told Metro France in 2015. “Luckily they weren’t focused on my career. All that mattered to them was that I was happy.”
She was just 10 years old and left home to begin shooting the movies that would soon make her a household name. Her parents, both full-time lawyers, stayed behind with her younger brother, Alex.
“I had to grow up quickly,” she told GQ U.K. in 2013, noting that her early independence made her “quite a serious young person.”
As she began to contend with her celebrity status, she held on to her identity by focusing on who she was to her loved ones. “I am a sister,” she explained to British Vogue in 2019. “I belong to a family … There’s a whole existence and identity that I have that’s important and weighted and solid that has nothing to do with [my fame].”
From how they’ve kept her down to earth to their careers and values, here’s everything about Emma Watson’s parents, Chris Watson and Jacqueline Luesby, and their relationship with the actress.
They raised Emma and her brother Alex in Paris
Emma was born on April 15, 1990, to dad Chris Watson and mom Jacqueline Luesby. She was the first child for the pair, who have kept details of their relationship and marriage largely out of the spotlight. They lived in Paris at the time, where Emma was born, and she spent the early years of her childhood.
After her arrival, the Beauty and the Beast star was joined by her brother Alex Watson, born on Dec. 15, 1992. The family of four continued to live in Paris until Chris and Jacqueline split in 1995.
Their divorce prompted the family to move back to their native England, where Emma — then 6 years old — began to attend the Dragon School in Oxford and received acting lessons at her local Stagecoach Theatre Arts, according to British Vogue.
Chris Watson and Jacqueline divorced in 1995
While little is known about the start of their marriage, Chris and Jacqueline went their separate ways in 1995. Their divorce accelerated Emma’s sense of independence and self-reliance, she explained to GQ U.K.
“As my parents were divorced and they both worked full time, I had to grow up quickly,” Emma said. “I guess it made me quite a serious young person.”
Her independence was compounded by early fame. Emma was discovered at age 9 when she auditioned alongside a group of her classmates in the school gym for the role of Hermione Granger — a character she’d revered when reading the Harry Potter series.
After landing the part, she began traveling alone to film the movies while her parents stayed home to work and raise her brother. “I was responsible for myself, and being responsible for myself, I knew I was my backstop,” she told GQ U.K. about avoiding a “rebellious phase.”
They worked full-time during her rise to fame
Both Chris and Jacqueline were full-time lawyers when Emma became a household name and continued to work as such as their daughter found her footing in the entertainment world. The Little Women actress opened up to GQ U.K. about what it was like being on the road for two months of filming at 10 years old.
“I was traveling; I was away from home,” she said. “My parents didn’t chaperone me. I think that was a key difference between me and Dan [Radcliffe] and Rupert [Grint]. I didn’t have my parents with me; I didn’t have a family member.”
Emma doesn’t fault her parents for focusing on their careers, though, adding that she “respected” their decision because Alex also needed to be considered.
She continued, “They both really are driven in their careers, and as [they] are divorced, if my mum had gone traveling with me, she wouldn’t have been there for my brother. It wasn’t a possibility.”
Chris and Jacqueline kept her down to earth
Despite becoming the star of one of the highest-grossing blockbuster series of all time, Emma was still just Emma at home.
While her parents were supportive of her career, the magnitude of her success was never their focus — instead, they prized good conversation and her dedication to her studies.
“I guess what forms you as a person, is what you do within your family to receive love or attention,” she told GQ U.K. “In my family, what you had to do to receive attention was to have good conversation at the dinner table or for me to do well at school, and those were my focuses because that was what was valued the most.”
Emma continued, “I think my parents were very focused on keeping me down to earth. The biggest compliment I’ve ever had, getting ready for a premiere or whatever, is that I scrub up all right.”
While their attitude helped her stay grounded, it also meant she didn’t fully grasp the extent of her status in Hollywood until she was older. “I really didn’t have any perspective of it. I was just incredibly naive about the whole thing,”
Chris raised Emma as an equal
Emma was brought up with the same expectations as her brother Alex, she told GQ U.K., explaining that her father never treated her differently based on her sex.
“I don’t think my dad knew what to do with me, as a daughter. He treated me like a boy; my brother and I were treated the same,” she explained.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower alum also revealed that Chris “didn’t do kid stuff” and viewed them as individuals.
“You weren’t allowed to order off the kid’s menu at dinner, we had to try something from the adult menu,” Emma said. “We’d play tennis, and he’d smack the ball as hard at me as he did with anyone else he played.”
Emma and her mom attended the Women’s March together in 2017
In January 2017, The Bling Ring actress and her mother took to the streets of Washington, D.C., to take part in the Women’s March, a global protest against the election of former President Donald Trump.
Emma, a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador who has long championed women’s rights and gender equality, shared photos of herself and Jacqueline marching alongside millions of other people, including a slew of fellow celebrities, on Twitter, now known as X.
The mother-daughter duo embrace in some shots or hold hands as they walk through the crowd. To show her support for the momentous day, Jacqueline donned one of the pink knit caps worn by thousands of women as a sign of solidarity with one another.
Chris is a winemaker
While still living in Paris, Chris headed to Northern Burgundy to purchase several plots of land in the town of Chablis, France, in the early 1990s. He went on to plant with vines that now make up the family’s estate, Domaine Watson. The winery offers two cuvées: a Pinot Noir grown in Irancy and a Chardonnay from Chablis.
Alex offered insight into the family’s backstory with the winery on Instagram. “My dad first planted our vineyards more than 30 years ago, whilst working as a barrister in Paris,” he captioned a photo of him and Emma in a field. “He fell in love with the place and after consuming enough wine, [the locals] seem to have fallen in love with him too.”
Emma’s brother continued, “We went on to win an award as 2nd best independent producer of Chablis in 2002, and a few years after that he was appointed as one of only 25 piliers of the region, entrusted to safeguarding the best interests of the wine growers.”
Alex also explained how it inspired terroir-driven Renais, a gin company he and Emma launched in 2023.
