Working together is something that Emma Watson and her brother Alex Watson have been doing from a young age.
The siblings, who were born and raised in France, have “wonderful memories” around picking grapes at their father’s vineyard before teaming up for their gin company Renais in 2023.
But before Emma Waston, 34, and Alex Watson, 31, officially entered into business together, they dabbled in working with one another here and there. The siblings led a 2010 campaign for Burberry and Alex Watson even had a minor role in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”
“Yes, I was in the fifth one for, like, all of about three seconds. You have to concentrate so hard to see me,” Alex Watson tells TODAY.com. “If you Google me, it will still list me as an actor for what I can only assume is this three-second cameo, which is extraordinary.”
So does the Watson family rewatch the famous franchise that launched his sister’s career?
“Yeah, we’ll give them a little rewatch,” he says. “I’ve got younger brothers and sisters as well, and we’ll sometimes get together and give them a watch.”
After being offered modeling and film auditions, Alex Watson says he “quickly realized” that he “wasn’t well suited to any of that” and focused on his love of hospitality. He worked with beverage company Diageo, before turning his attention to recycling the grape skins from his father’s vineyard in Chablis, France, and creating Renais.
“Emma and I are second-generation winemakers, in a way, and come from a wine-making family,” Alex Watson says. “And my industry path was always alcohol and spirits … Emma was totally bought into the project from a creative perspective, from a sustainability perspective. And for us together, it was really about saying, ‘How do we carry forward the last 30 years of dad’s wine making legacy into something new?’”
Alex Watson says some of his best memories growing up were going to France for Christmas and the holidays. These days, when he’s not traveling, he says they spend “a lot more time together” now that Emma Watson’s not filming and lives closer to where their parents live.
With family at the core of Christmas and the Watsons’ business, one has to ask the question many Potterheads have asked online: Is “Harry Potter” a Christmas movie?
“I’ve seen this debate online. Is ‘Harry Potter’ a Christmas movie? That is one for the philosophers,” Alex Watson says. “I think it’s super cozy. There tends to always be, like, a Christmas scene throughout the films or most of them.”
“I think it’s a stretch though … I think it’s a Halloween movie, for sure,” he adds. “It’s a great family film, and Christmas films basically should always be family films. So I (think) it ticks a lot of boxes.”