In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Emma Watson discusses her upcoming film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The newest issue of EW, out August 10th, contains the full interview with Emma. The film, also starring Logan Lerman, Nina Dobrev and Ezra Miller, will be released on September 20th.

She remembers meeting with Stephen Chbosky who persuaded her to take on the part of Sam, a rebellious and popular high school girl. “At our initial meeting, he said, ‘Okay, not  only is this going to be one of the most important parts you play, you’re also going to have the summer of your life and meet some of your best friends.’ I thought, ‘That’s quite a claim. Who is this guy?” Watson says with a laugh. “Everything he said came true.”

The cast  all bonded while living in the same hotel in Pittsburgh, which Watson now calls one of her  favorite places. It was there that Watson can point to one particular scene — when Sam stands up in the back of a pickup truck driving through a tunnel — as the moment she was able to truly graduate from Hogwarts. “I started as Emma with some Hermione still left in my system,” she says. “I went through the tunnel and I came out ready to start something new.”