At 23, Watson is a minted Hollywood star with an estimated fortune of more than $40 million. She’s a legit fashion icon, making headlines in a backless red Dior Haute Couture gown over pants (pants!) at the Golden Globes. And she is also the most famous college student in America, who, during her sophomore year at Brown University, told a story on the Late Show With David Letterman about how she’d embarrassed herself in class by mistakenly asking for a “rubber” (that’s British for eraser). When we meet, she’s just finished a punishing course on literary critical theory. “I wish I could be, like, ‘I loved Kant’s theory of aesthetics’,” she says, brushing a stray wisp of hair behind one ear, “but I’d be lying. And I’d sound really pretentious.” She’s more enthusiastic about House of Cards and Friday Night Lights and Patti Smith, with whom—more evidence of that dichotomy—she’s become unlikely e-pals.