The former Harry Potter star, Emma Watson is reportedly the front-runner to play the lead role of Anastacia Steele in the forthcoming 50 Shades of Grey movie adaptation. International Business Times report today that the 22 year-old, who played Hermione in the globally successful Harry Potter movie franchise, is one of the favourites on the list of potential actresses for the saucy role.
Fifty Shades of Grey, dubbed 'mummy porn' started life as a work of erotic fan fiction, based on Stephenie Meyer's 'Twilight' series. It has since become a hugely popular work of fiction in its own right and recently became the fastest selling paperback of all time. The movie adaptation is definitely in the pipeline, and the book's author, EL James, personally selected The Social Network producers Mike De Luca and Dana Brunetti to take charge of the all-important casting for the movie. So far, there have been no announcements regarding the cast list but Ian Somerhalder (Vampire Diaries) looks likely to take the lead male role of Christian Grey.
The role of Anastacia Steele would be an interesting one for Emma Watson to tackle; not least because her acting career thus far has been built on her playing a girl of school age, with a wholesome image. The young actress has been making moves to step away from that image, though, since the filming ended for Harry Potter. Perhaps Fifty Shades of Grey could provide the breakthrough role that she needs, in order to shake the legacy of Hermione Granger once and for all.