She is still best-known for her turn playing wholesome teenage wizard Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series.

But three years on from her last outing in the blockbuster franchise, Emma Watson has admitted finding it difficult to land ‘adult’ film roles, claiming a refusal to ‘sex herself up’ means she is often over-looked for more mature parts.

The 23-year-old actress has landed a number of high-profile acting jobs since the final Harry Potter film was released in 2011.

She has landed a bit-part role as a wardrobe assistant in 2001 film, My Week with Marilyn, a college student in The Perks of Being a Wallflower the following year, and a teenage gang member in The Bling ring in 2013.

She is now playing the adopted daughter of Russell Crowe’s character in upcoming biblical epic, Noah. Away from the screen she has worked as a model for upmarket fashion house, Burberry.

However, she has now said that she struggles to convince people she is capable of playing older characters because of the more classy outfits she wears away from the screen.

She told Elle Magazine: ‘In my downtime, I don’t sex myself up much. Sometimes I have a hard time convincing directors that I can play more adult roles.’

She added: ‘I was being offered roles that I didn’t feel were very complicated. Women that were one dimensional. Roles that required me to be one thing, but real women never are.’

Miss Watson’s Harry Potter co-star Daniel Radcliffe has won a slew of role in which he plays older characters. He played widowed lawyer Arthur Kipps in 2012 horror film The Woman in Black, and is preparing to take the role of Igor in a new adaption of Frankenstein.

Miss Watson enrolled at Brown University in the US after filming finished on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She is currently studying English Literature and is due to graduate later this year.

She decided to take a break from her acting career in order to experience a more normal life after appearing the Harry Potter films between the ages of nine and 21. She has also gone on to become a qualified yoga instructor.

Famous role: Emma is still best-known for her turn playing wholesome teenage wizard Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series

New project: The actress is now playing the adopted daughter of Russell Crowe’s character in upcoming biblical epic, Noah

She added in the interview with Elle magazine: ‘I just don’t want a life where I can’t have a life.

‘I remember reading this thing that Elizabeth Taylor wrote. She had her first kiss in character on a movie set. It really struck me. I had this sense that if I really wasn’t really careful, that could be me. That my first kiss could be in somebody else’s clothes.

‘And my experiences could all belong to someone else.’ She said that at times she worried that she had done the wrong thing by going to university, thinking: ‘I don’t know if I can do this, or if this is sensible any more.’ However she added: ‘I just don’t want a life where I can’t have a life.’

Source: dailymail.co.uk