Contrary to popular belief, Hollywood isn’t just about the razzle-dazzle of fame and success. It’s actually much more complicated than the star-studded front that is presented to the audience. Ask any actors in the film industry, and they’ll agree, because behind the blinding limelight of high-profile films is a chaotic mess of discrepancies and miscommunication rendered as a sour memory that one would rather forget.

What goes on in the sets of popular movies isn’t always as intriguing as what we see on the big screens. From creative differences and heated arguments to entire scandals, there’s a lot that happens off the camera, like the time when Emma Watson walked out of the set of a million-dollar film in the middle of shooting and the elaborate controversy that sparked up after.

Emma Watson

Why Emma Watson Walked Off the Set of This Is the End

This Is the End was Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s directorial debut with the two also behind penning the screenplay. An apocalyptic dark comedy, the film stars the likes of Jonah Hill, James Franco, Michael Cera, Danny McBride, Channing Tatum, and the directors themselves. Grossing $126 million globally, the 2013 comedy was received immensely well by critics and the audience. And given how it was Rogen and Goldberg’s first directorial effort, it was a good number to start with. But it looks like the situation behind the scenes wasn’t particularly great.

Emma Watson, who was also a part of the project but had a relatively smaller role in the movie, was rumored to have abandoned the set while they were filming a major scene with Tatum in it. The scene was outrageously risqué wherein cannibals were waiting to devour Rogen and his co-stars while their “king” McBride stepped out of an RV with a leashed Tatum in nothing but a thong. Talk about raunchy.

Emma Watson in This Is the End (2013)

According to an extra who was present at the time, the Little Women star already knew that the Magic Mike actor was supposed to be in a thong. But when Watson reached the set and witnessed the scene, it was just too much for her to digest.

It certainly didn’t help that Tatum, who was apparently inebriated at the time, started to perform his “break dancing” routine in front of an already disturbed Watson. The Step Up star was not only drunk but was apparently also smoking weed during the scene, and his debauched state made the British actress reach her boiling point. So, Watson did the only thing she could think of and walked off the set due to which she was never included in the final product of that scene.

“The ground was wet and muddy and Channing said we were stepping in Emma’s tears,” the source added, claiming that Tatum further mocked Watson’s departure.

Seth Rogen Broke His Silence Over the Incident 

For the longest time, all of this remained unaccounted for with neither Watson nor her co-stars neither confirming nor denying it. But then James Franco once addressed the matter without naming anybody and attested to the fact that such an incident indeed took place in a film helmed by Rogen. And while fans already knew who the Spider-Man star was talking about, it wasn’t until 2021 that the director himself explicitly confirmed the long-standing rumor.

Emma Watson and Seth Rogen

In a profile for British GQ, the 41-year-old actor and comedian confirmed that the Beauty and the Beast star had, as a matter of fact, abandoned the set when things got out of hand. “I think sometimes when you read something, when it comes to life it, doesn’t seem to be what you thought it was,” The Interview filmmaker stated, claiming that he never held it against Watson either.

In a follow-up post on Twitter, however, Seth Rogen clarified that the award-winning actress never “stormed off the set.” “The scene was not what was originally scripted, it was getting improvised, changed drastically, and was not what she agreed to,” he said of the whole debacle.

Though Watson never addressed any of what went down while shooting the 2013 film, at least Rogen cleared the air and absolved her of any blame.