Emma Watson didn't hold back when sitting down for her first major interview in years. The Harry Potter alum made a surprise appearance on Jay Shetty's "On Purpose" podcast on Wednesday, September 24, discussing everything from her decision to step back from the public eye to where her relationship with controversial author J.K. Rowling stands today. "I'll never say that I'll quit acting," Watson, 35, said during the episode. "I'll always be an actor. I'm still open to doing it again." Watson last stepped in front of the camera six years ago, playing Meg March in 2019's Little Women before taking a break from the spotlight. The actress rose to fame playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise from 2001 to 2011, but going to work after that experience wasn't what she expected. Is Emma Watson Still Acting? 'Harry Potter' Actress Shares Rare Life Update "Most people don't come to those environments looking for friendships," she recalled. "I found the rejection really painful. I think it was so unusual to make a set of films for 12 years, and we were a community." Watson said she felt "crazy" for walking away from a career that had "such a high value" - but it was something she had to do. Keep scrolling for the biggest revelations from Watson's interview: Why She Stepped Away From Hollywood The turning point in Watson's career came while she was filming Beth March's death sequence in Little Women. "I realized I was drawing on painful stuff in my life that I was actually healing, and I didn't want to keep revisiting in order to do some of the more intense, scarier, sadder things that I had to do," she said. "I realized I was like, 'I don't know if this is super great for me actually to keep revisiting these,' or if I want to use these as my tools." JB Lacroix/FilmMagic Watson also said one major thing shifted when she was working with new costars. "I was coming to those sets with an expectation that I think I had developed on Harry Potter, which was that ... the people I worked with were going to be my family, and that we were going to be lifelong friends," she said. "I came to work looking for friendship, and that was a very painful experience for me outside of Harry Potter and in Hollywood." Watson said she got her "ass kicked" by the rejection of friendship on film sets. "It broke me," she added, getting emotional. Finding Friendships in Hollywood Watson continued discussing her difficulties with Hollywood by further explaining the absence of real friendships. "You always get asked when you are promoting these big films, like, 'Do you guys hang out on set and are you all friends?' And everyone sort of nods enthusiastically. But the truth is, no one has seen each other outside of work," she admitted. "The schedule is insane. Everyone's so tired that when they get any time off, you're going straight back to your hotel room to try to claw in any piece of rest that you possibly can." She added, "Friendships require time and trust and presence, and those things very rarely come about. They can, and they do occasionally, but it's more of a solar eclipse than an everyday situation." See Emma Watson's Super Stylish Red Carpet Fashion Evolution The Truth About Red Carpets Watson claimed "everything in your body says something's wrong" at high-profile events because of the "sensory overload." "Even though you're wearing an incredibly glamorous dress and you're there to do something exciting, I don't think there's anything that can make it not weird that people are screaming at the top of their lungs," she said. "You have to try to pretend as though this is all normal and you're unfazed." She said it's "basically impossible" to not feel like "an insane person" in those types of situations. Becoming Hermione Before auditioning for the role that made her famous, Watson was already a fan of Rowling's book series. "It wasn't so much about acting so much as it was that I just the books meant so much to me personally," she said. "I always felt like Hermione. I knew I was never auditioning for anything else, I knew it was her. I don't know how to explain it. Something felt right about it." Courtesy Everett Collection Who Is Emma Watson? The actress admitted that she became an "avatar" of herself throughout her time in Hollywood. "She'd become reproduced so many times over and and had become so loaded by all of this different stuff. She almost felt too heavy to carry. I was like, 'I don't even know if I can be that bitch anymore,'" Watson said, recalling a date that she went on where the guy said, "Emma Watson makes me anxious" - and she agreed. "I can't even be her," she said. "I don't know how to be her." Her Dating Life Watson said it can be "dehumanizing" when she's on a date and someone realizes who she is. "Seeing someone's behavior completely switch and turn and change can be a jarring experience," she said. "I think what's nice is, at the very least, dating for everyone is basically a complete disaster and free-