A 'Harry Potter' Reunion For Emma Watson

Emma Watson has lined up her next role.

Emma Watson is set for a "Harry Potter" reunion with the franchise's producer, David Heyman.

Watson and Heyman will collaborate for "The Queen of the Tearling," Variety reports. The upcoming project is the film adaptation of a book trilogy, to be published by Harper Collins in 2014. The trilogy is being hyped as the next "Game of Thrones," penned by first-time author Erika Johansen.

Watson has signed on to star in the film, as well as serve as executive producer. While "The Queen of the Tearling" is still without a director or writer, and the first book has yet to hit stores, the rights to the novel were already acquired by Warner Bros.

Watson recently appeared in Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring" and apocalyptic comedy "This Is The End." The 23-year-old actress will also appear in the upcoming biblical film "Noah."

For more on "The Queen of the Tearling," head over to Variety.

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A minute with: Harry Potter director David Yates (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – British director David Yates has spent the last six and half years of his life bringing the wizard world of Harry Potter to the big screen.

The 47 year old has made the final four of the eight films based on the top-selling books by author J.K. Rowling films.

But as the franchise comes to an end with the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" this week, Yates talked to Reuters about putting a full stop on an epic experience and what he plans to do next.

Q: Why did you sign on to do these movies?

A: "It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I hadn't read the books and they asked me, 'Would you like to do it?' I was like 'Oh my God, I'd better read a book.' It was so funny and charming and I quickly read the second one. It was a difficult world to walk away from, and once I started, everybody was really great. They asked me to stay and I said yes. And they asked me to stay and I said yes again, and I didn't want to be the bloke who made the two in the middle."

Q: Like the middle child?

A: "Yeah, exactly. And no one takes you that seriously. So I stayed."

Q: Was it a conscious decision to keep the atmosphere of this film rather mature?

A: "One way to keep the whole series fresh is to keep making it grow old with the audience and that's the most important thing for me. (The audience) may have been six or seven or eight and they are 16, 17 and 19 now ... They don't want to be patronized with cute stuff anymore. Also, little kids love to be scared. I loved to be scared when I was little."

Q: What are your next moves, now that you have these big blockbusters under your belt?

A: "I am going to make a small film next -- a very lean, mean, small film with a tiny budget. I don't know what it is yet. With big movies, you get slightly indulged because everything is there. And it is not healthy. You need to step away from that and be challenged again."

Q: Your first movie was "When I was a Girl", how have you grown as a director since then?

A: "Wow. It nearly killed me making that. It was 16 minutes long and nearly killed me. Because making your first film is your hardest film to ever make. All these muscles start to develop and it's painful. At that time I was much more interested in lenses and cameras and all that gear. You get obsessed with the wrong things. The biggest way I have changed is I care about the things that really matter, which are the story, acting, writing, and mise-en-scene of the story telling. I am less obsessed with dollies now."

Q: What characteristics do you want people to look for in knowing they are watching a Yates film?

A: "You know it's a really hard question to answer because I often get asked that question. But I asked (producer) David Heyman, 'Why did you choose me and why did you keep me for four films?' And he said, 'You're work has humanity in it. You really love the characters and there is a warmth and empathy with the characters and I love that.' So honestly, I have no idea, or when I retire I'll look back and know."

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Bittersweet Goodbyes at the "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" Premiere (Fashion Wire Daily)

New York – It was their final red-carpet walk as their alter egos Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, and the young actors who have played those roles in the eight "Harry Potter" films were feeling nostalgic as they posed for photos together one last time. It all took place as "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" premiered at Avery Fisher Hall in New York on Monday, July 11, and Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint couldn't help but get emotional.

"It's been a very weird time, really, of accepting the end. We finished filming a year ago and I now I have this quite empty feeling," Grint confessed at a press conference earlier. "It's taken me quite a while to accept that it is over."

Watson agreed with her co-star that getting through the final film and finishing up the last marketing push for the series was a bittersweet experience.

"It's so funny, in a way this one was incredibly challenging for me," she said, reflecting on the final movie adapted from the J. K. Rowling novels. "It really pushed me as an actress, but at the same time I was able to use a lot of my own genuine emotion that I felt about loss and all of it coming to an end. I was able to bring how I was feeling to the role."

Also on hand to celebrate the final chapter were many of the trio's co-stars, including Alan Rickman, Tom Felton and Matthew Lewis, as well as director David Yates, producer David Heyman and plenty of famous fans of the magical series.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick added to the general mayhem as masses of Pottermaniacs crowded behind barricades, trying to get a glimpse of their favorite stars. Just-married America Ferrera brought her new spouse, Ryan Piers Williams, into the mayhem.

Seth Green, Sarah Hyland, Ariana Grande, Clare Grant, Joey Fatone, Whoopi Goldberg, Mark Sanchez, Michael Chiklis and Marcia Gay Harden rounded out the well-known faces at the final premiere screening. And while a bit of sadness tinged the celebration, fans of the "Harry Potter" series can take heart, for at the London premiere held on July 7, Rowling told fans that Harry may just come back again someday in a new series of novels.

"It is my baby and if I want to bring it out to play again, I will," she said.

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Harry Potter actors bid adieu to their characters (AP)

LONDON – Daniel Radcliffe will miss being an action hero. Emma Watson will miss being a role model. Robbie Coltrane will simply miss getting to play a good guy.

The cast and crew of the "Harry Potter" movies have been saying goodbye to their characters on the eve of the premiere of the eighth and final film in the magical adventure series.

When they met the press at a valedictory news conference Wednesday, it felt like the last day of school — a warm mixture of release and regret.

Radcliffe, Watson and Rupert Grint have grown up in the films over the past decade, playing young wizards Harry, Hermione and Ron as they progress through Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and fight the dark forces of Lord Voldemort.

Watson said was it is still "difficult to process" the fact that she won't be playing Hermione again.

The 21-year-old said she would miss the brave, brainy young witch, who was not just a role but a role model.

"I think of her like a sister," Watson said. "She feels so real to me. ... Of course I will miss the people, but actually I will just miss being her.

"I think she made me a better person, and she made me work harder, just as a result of comparing myself to her every day."

Grint, 21, said he felt bereft that the series had ended.

"I have felt a little bit lost without it, really, not really knowing what to do with myself," Grint said. "It's been such a constant part of my life."

Radcliffe — who appeared on tape from New York, where he is starring in a Broadway production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" — said he would miss the cast and crew, and the stunts.

"I don't really have the natural frame and stature of an action hero," the modestly sized 21-year-old actor said. "So it's kind of a gift for a young actor to be able to do all that stuff. ... Bursting out of the water surrounded by a ring of fire: I will never get to do that again."

Scottish actor Coltrane — who has played the friendly giant Hagrid since the start of the series — said the films were "the first time in my entire career that I've played a thoroughly good man."

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" has its premiere Thursday in London and opens around the world next week. It brings Harry's saga to a close 10 years after the launch of the first film, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," and four years after the publication of the final book in J.K. Rowling's adventure series.

More than 20 members of the cast and crew — from producer David Heyman and director David Yates to assorted Hogwarts teachers and red-haired Weasley siblings — spoke to reporters Wednesday under the grand neo-Gothic vaults of London's St. Pancras Hotel.

It was a sentimental occasion. Everyone, magic or muggle, paid tribute to their colleagues. Several spoke of the Potter "family" and rejected the idea of the films as a "franchise."

Yates, who has directed the last four Potter movies, said the cast and crew had a strong bond.

"We've all been to the moon together, as it were, and I think that's special," he said.

Evanna Lynch, the Irish actress and Harry Potter fan who was cast, aged 14, as flighty Hogwarts pupil Luna Lovegood, said she had no idea what she would do next.

"I'm distraught that this is over," said 19-year-old Lynch. "I've been obsessed with this book since I was eight, so I don't really know what I was before that or what will come next.

"Apparently they are opening a Harry Potter Experience thing where Leavesden (Studios) was. I am available as a tour guide."

The "Harry Potter" films have been big box office hits, but largely overlooked by the Academy Awards and other major prizes.

Yates said he said he was more proud of the approval of fans, like those camped out in London's Trafalgar Square before Thursday's premiere in "a mini-Glastonbury of people from all over the world who have been camping out in the rain for the last three nights."

"That's more of a compensation than lots of trophies," he said.

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'Potter' class graduates with no child-actor woes (AP)

LOS ANGELES – If the young cast of the "Harry Potter" films received report cards for their school days at Hogwarts, they'd all probably earn the notation, "plays well with others."

Cast as impressionable children in Hollywood's biggest fantasy franchise, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and their many young co-stars have maneuvered through 11 years of fame — and the temptations it brings — without any whispers of Lindsay Lohan-style meltdowns that can derail child actors.

They've grown up smart, humble, polite and professional, eager to balance modest private lives with productive acting careers rather than leap into the party-till-dawn celebrity lifestyle.

The actors and the headmasters of the Warner Bros. franchise say it wasn't magic that kept the kids on their best behavior. It was the luck of the draw when the youngsters were first cast, good parenting, mindful shepherding that resembled the rigors and care of the finest boarding schools, and a sheltered workplace outside of London, far from Hollywood's madding crowds.

"It's very different doing it in England," said Radcliffe, who was 11 when cast in the title role as the boy wizard for 2001's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and turns 22 the week after the mid-July debut of the final film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2."

"In America, you're treated as an actor first and a kid second. Here, you're very much treated as a kid first and an actor second. In fact, you're not really treated as an actor. You're treated as a kid on a film set, which is how it should be, because that's all you are that point. No one's an actor at 12."

And with the performers so young, their parents were instrumental in steering the children through busy working lives and the madness of instant celebrity.

"We couldn't have done it without the family support that's kept all three of them and the supporting cast all lovely, lovely people," said David Barron, a producer on most of the "Harry Potter" films. "They've got very strong families who kept them really strongly grounded."

With tens of millions of "Harry Potter" fans to please and billions of dollars at stake, Warner Bros. went to great lengths to protect and nurture the stars through eight films and a decade of hard work.

Sets to create author J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and other Potter locations were built at Leavesden Studios northwest of London, giving the filmmakers a controlled environment where they could work and essentially help raise their young charges.

"It's been a bit of a bubble, and it's been very self-contained, and I think we just have good people around us," said Watson, who was 10 when cast as Hermione Granger and now is 21. "We've just been lucky that we haven't been exploited in any way."

Radcliffe, Watson, Grint and such co-stars as Tom Felton, Bonnie Wright, Evanna Lynch and Matthew Lewis had tutors on set, along with armies of studio publicists to help coach them through the media circus of almost-annual premieres and press junkets to promote each film.

The filmmakers say Leavesden became a kind of Hogwarts boarding school for the cast.

"It was a place that was just us, nobody else," said David Heyman, a producer on all of the "Harry Potter" films. "That has enabled us to sort of cocoon ourselves in an environment, in a way, that I think is a supportive and a safe one."

"To have children grow up in that kind of maelstrom of affection and general applause for everything they do, it's not normal, and you can imagine it very easily could have ended in somebody going off the rails somewhere," producer Barron said.

"But they were never put under the microscope of the outside world whilst they were working. ... If ever they got a bit bumptious when they were younger, the bubble was very quickly burst by someone or other on the crew, who just said, `Oh, yeah? Come on.'"

The actors developed strong work ethics, and the filmmakers saw traits in their stars that mirrored those of the characters.

Like Harry, Radcliffe assumed a solicitous leadership role, sort of a goodwill ambassador on set. Like Hermione, Watson was studious, hurling herself into her education. Like Ron Weasley, Grint had a playful humor and the support of a large family.

"You felt people are just kind of waiting for us to fall into that stereotype of, I suppose, child actors," said Grint, who started on "Potter" at age 11 and turns 23 a month after the final film opens. "But I've always been quite busy. Never really had much time to go too crazy. I come from a big family, as well, and that always helps you to know who you are."

Director David Yates, who made the final four "Harry Potter" films, said he wondered a few years back whether some of his stars might turn into a handful as they reached the rebellious late-teen years.

"Because, they have every right to kind of get angry or frustrated," Yates said. "They carry a lot of responsibility. They're under tremendous pressure. They have enormous temptations. The world is at their feet. They get paid enormous amounts of money. But they haven't gone over the edge, and I think it's the people around them. I think there's something ingrained with them. It's their family."

Many child actors have trouble landing more adult roles once they outgrow their cute and cuddly phase and can get sidetracked into drugs or alcohol, such as Lohan and others before her, including Danny Bonaduce, Corey Feldman and Macauley Culkin.

So far, the key "Potter" stars have remained focused. Radcliffe has done Broadway with "Equus" and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," and stars in the upcoming big-screen thriller "The Woman in Black." Watson is studying at Brown University and has a role in the upcoming Marilyn Monroe drama "My Week With Marilyn." Grint did a couple of independent movies in between "Potter" films and stars in the upcoming war saga "Comrade."

Radcliffe recalls endless questions over the past decade as people asked him, "Aren't you scared about what's happened to these other child stars?"

"Having to answer that so many times made me go, `Jesus, if you're asking this so many times, now if I do go off the deep end, I'm just never, ever going to hear the end of that,'" he said. "By now, I do view it as sort of a personal mission that I have. If all of us in this big franchise can then go off and have successful, balanced lives, careers, whatever, I'm hoping that I paved the way for the next generation of child stars in not having to answer those questions."

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Harry Potter author ends 16-year spell with agent (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling said on Monday she had ended her 16-year association with the literary agent who helped to launch the multi-million-selling series of books about the boy wizard.

Christopher Little began working with Rowling in 1995, although it took until August 1996 to find a publisher for her first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".

Their partnership lasted through the seven-book series, which sold 400 million copies and made Rowling into one of the richest women in the world.

But just days before the final film based on the books hits the big screen, the author confirmed their working relationship had come to an end, without giving any further explanation.

"We can confirm that J.K. Rowling has terminated her association with the Christopher Little Literary Agency," said a statement from a public relations agency on Rowling's behalf.

"This was a painful decision, especially as Ms Rowling had actively sought a different outcome for some weeks. However, it was not taken without good reason and it finally became unavoidable."

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2", the final film in the epic saga starring Daniel Radcliffe as Harry and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, has its world premiere in London on Thursday.

Rowling laid down her pen -- and Harry's magic wand -- when she finished the seventh book in 2007. But the author has yet to let go of her creation.

Last month she unveiled an interactive website featuring new material about Potter's world, and announced that his adventures would be sold as e-books for the first time.

The free website, www.pottermore.com, will go live from July 31 for one million Potter fans who pass a special online challenge, and to the general public from October.

The seven e-books will be available through the website from October in partnership with Sony.

Rowling's fortune is estimated at ?530 million (580 million euros, $855 million), according to this year's annual list of Britain's wealthiest people published in The Sunday Times newspaper.

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Harry Potter star says he no longer drinks (AP)

LONDON – Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe said he has given up drinking alcohol after realizing he was partying too hard.

The 21-year-old actor says he began to drink too much while filming "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince," the sixth movie in the Harry Potter series, in 2009.

He said; "I became so reliant on (alcohol) to enjoy stuff. There were a few years there when I was just so enamored with the idea of living some sort of famous person's lifestyle that really isn't suited to me."

He added that he decided to cut out drinking altogether, instead of simply cutting down.

"As much as I would love to be a person that goes to parties and has a couple of drinks and has a nice time — that doesn't work for me. I do that very unsuccessfully," he said.

"I'd just rather sit at home and read, or go out to dinner with someone, or talk to someone I love, or talk to somebody that makes me laugh."

Radcliffe was speaking to GQ magazine in an interview released Monday.

Radcliffe shot to fame aged 11 after he was cast as Harry Potter for the movie adaptations of J.K. Rowling's popular books about a teenage wizard.

Many child actors have struggled to cope with adulthood, but Radcliffe said he was determined to prove that child actors could go on to build long careers.

"If I can make a career for myself after Potter, and it goes well, and is varied and with longevity, then that puts to bed the 'child actors argument,'" he said.

The last movie in the series "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part II" premieres on Thursday.

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Harry Potter wizard series to be sold as e-books (AP)

LONDON – Harry Potter's adventures are going digital.

Author J.K. Rowling announced Thursday that her seven Potter novels will be sold as e-books starting in October — ending the boy wizard's status as one of the highest-profile holdouts against digital publishing.

The magical stories that conquered the world in print form will be available as audiobooks and e-books in multiple languages through a new website, "Pottermore."

Rowling also has written 18,000 words of new Potter material for the interactive site, which promises to immerse users in her world of wizards, combining elements of computer games, social networking and an online store.

Rowling says the site includes "information I have been hoarding for years" about the books' characters and settings.

"Pottermore" has been the subject of intense speculation among Potter fans since it appeared on the Internet with the words "coming soon."

The project unveiled in London lets Potter fans delve into the world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Sections let users shop for wands in Diagon Alley, travel to Hogwarts from the imaginary Platform 9 3/4 at London's King's Cross train station and be sorted into Hogwarts school houses by the perceptive Sorting Hat.

Along the way are wand fights, games and new information about characters beloved around the world, including Harry's reviled relatives, the Dursleys.

The site goes live July 31, when 1 million registered users will be chosen to help flesh out the online world. It will be open to all users from October, in languages including English, French, German and Spanish.

"(It's) a way I can be creative in a medium that didn't exist when I started the books back in 1990," Rowling told reporters, a way to incorporate the thousands of "stories, drawings, ideas, suggestions" she still receives from fans, four years after the last Potter book was published.

Harry Potter fans who have been sharing enthusiasm and stories online for years should be delighted by the new digital world. But Rowling said she wanted to keep the emphasis of the site firmly on the written word.

"We've had a lot of requests for online games," she said. "I wanted to pull it back to reading."

The seven Harry Potter novels have sold more than 450 million copies and made Rowling one of the world's richest women.

The last book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," was published in 2007, and Rowling said she still has no plans to write an eighth.

But she said Pottermore was a way to reconnect with a character and a universe she loved.

"It is exactly like an ex-boyfriend," Rowling said. "Finishing writing Harry — I have only ever cried in that way and that much when my mother died. I have never cried for a man the way I cried for Harry Potter."

The latest Warner Bros. film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," has its world premiere in London on July 7.

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J.K. Rowling has mysterious new Potter website (AP)

NEW YORK – J.K. Rowling has a new website — details to follow.

The site, Pottermore.com, is a new project for the "Harry Potter" author, spokeswoman Rebecca Salt said Thursday. The site is "not a new book" and "not directly related" to the final Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," which comes out next month, she said.

"We aren't saying any more than that!" Salt said.

"Pottermore" was trademarked in 2009 by Warner Bros., which distributes the Potter movies. The trademark description of Pottermore suggests an interactive site "providing on-line chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards" and "on-line facilities for real-time interaction with other computer users concerning topics of general interest."

The site itself reveals little beyond a scrawled message from the author that reads "Coming soon ...". Rowling already has a personal website, at http://www.jkrowling.com.

Pottermore.com also has a Twitter account, twitter.com/pottermore, and a YouTube countdown clock, which projects an author announcement for early Thursday, June 23.

News of Pottermore.com emerged Wednesday night with messages sent to nine Potter fan sites and an official Potter Twitter account. Each site received one letter, the letters spelling out "pottermore." A leading Potter fan site, http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, alleges that it has seen "a preview of Pottermore and it is, in a word, breathtaking."

"That is all we are permitted to say at the moment."

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Emma Watson looks to grow past Harry Potter (AP)

Emma Watson is preparing for the next chapter of her life

The `Harry Potter' actress admits that she needs to find her way out of the bubble, which she describes in part as the safe world of life on the set of the successful film franchise.

Watson says in the July issue of Vogue magazine that she wants to explore more of her creative side, and cites Patti Smith as a role model.

"I want to live like Patti," she said of the singer-songwriter, visual artist and poet.

The 21-year old remains close with co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, and recently flew to New York to see Radcliffe perform on Broadway in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."

Watson plays Hermione Granger for last time when the franchise's last film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" is released in July.

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Glammed-up Grace Potter makes a star turn (AP)

NEW YORK – Grace Potter is in the middle of an electrifying concert with her band, the Nocturnals, performing retro-rock grooves from their breakthrough album, when she takes what seems like a surprising detour and launches into a Beyonce song.

"Why don't you love me? Tell me, baby, why don't you love me?" Potter howls as she does a rendition of the Beyonce jam so pitch-perfect she seems to have morphed into the diva.

She's wearing a mini-dress and stiletto heels that Beyonce might rock, shaking her long blond hair from side to side. The only big difference between the two singers: Potter has a guitar strapped around her body.

It's taken years for Potter to release her inner-Beyonce, but it's a transformation that Potter felt was necessary if she and the Nocturnals were going to fully realize their rock `n' roll dreams.

"I think part of my growing up and part of my improvement as a frontwoman was finally embracing that spirit and that animal instinct to own it up there," says Potter, speaking backstage before the band's recent capacity-crowd concert at New York City's Irving Plaza.

"It took a lot of years for me to get comfortable, strutting my stuff, dancing like a fool, having that sparkly dress on that says `here I am,'" she acknowledges. "Because in the beginning, I was scared — I was scared that I wasn't going to be taken seriously."

It's hard not to take Potter seriously now. The band has had a breakthrough year since the release of their self-titled album last summer, and the 27-year-old Potter, as the Nocturnals' sexy-glammed up frontwoman, is poised for her own star-making turn.

"If you're looking at female artists, there are very few emerging right now that do what she does," says Rick Krim, VH1's executive vice president, talent and music programming. "She's got an amazing voice, and a great stage presence. She's fun, she's entertaining and she's got a great personality. It's a great package."

VH1 picked the Nocturnals as one of the acts to watch last year, and promptly added them to its "VH1 Divas Salute the Troops" concert in December. The group's performance of their sultry single "Paris (Ooh La La)" riveted the crowd; album sales increased 113 percent after the concert aired, VH1 said.

This summer, the band's profile will continue to rise. The Nocturnals are booked for major festivals this summer, including their first appearance on the main stage of the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn. They are also planning their own festival, Grand Point North, in Burlington, Vt.

"It's exciting. We've been planting seeds for about eight years," said drummer Matt Burr. "It was the perfect storm of songs getting better and touring more and more and more. ... Everything kind of really hit perfectly."

Potter, from Waitsfield, Vt., met Burr and fellow guitarist Scott Tournet when she was a college student and working on her first album, 2004's "Original Soul."

Burr remembers the first time he heard Potter sing. She was at a coffee house, and she played an original tune: "Apologies."

"I saw her play it at an open mic, I was one of many who was in attendance with my jaw on the floor," said Burr.

He and Tournet quickly signed on to work with Potter, appearing on her album, and a year later, they released their first album as Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, "Nothing but the Water."

Back then, Potter had many of the same qualities that make her so refreshing today: a husky, soulful voice, a deft skill as a keyboardist, good looks and a spark during her performances. But she was a brunette, more apt to wear jeans and a T-shirt during a performance, in contrast to her model-like persona today.

As the female leader of a band, Potter was unusual. She recalls when she'd be mistaken as the manager of the band, or one of their girlfriends. So she resisted dressing in feminine gear, though she was a fashionista at heart. She also felt pressure to prove herself as a female musician.

"I worked extremely hard at my craft and at being a good songwriter, being a good guitar player, being a good organist because I didn't think people would take me seriously," she says. "I was so focused on convincing people that I was one of the guys, so it was weird for me. ... It was tricky."

She no longer has those worries. These days, she looks like a cover girl with her sleek tresses, sexy outfits and stilettos (she even wears them during sound checks).

Not everyone is happy with her transformation. Some point to old photographs of a dark-haired Potter dressed in flannel and jeans and wonder if she made a calculated move to change her look for more attention.

Changing her look was calculated — but not for more mainstream appeal. Potter says it was the culmination of the band's ramped-up new sound — and her new attitude. She is more determined to give her stage show everything — including strapping on high heels and learning to play the guitar.

"It wasn't just, `Hey I wanna dress up cute now,' it really was from the bottom up a sense of production. Just like you would spend time making the lights perfect onstage, or the backdrop perfect onstage, what we put on our bodies needs to reflect the music, so the fashion has been a really fun new part of the production of the show because it is a show," she says.

"It naturally happened, which was so great. We went from wearing flannels and mud boots but flicking the switch and really amping it up," says Burr. "It's healthy to change and grow. ... She just naturally sort of progressed into the best sense of the word diva."

Part of Potter's revitalization came as the band was at a crossroads two years ago. Her bass player had left, and Potter set out to record a solo record with renowned producer T Bone Burnett.

The band was thinking about going on hiatus, but instead, starting working on new music while on the road with two new members: bassist Catherine Popper and rhythm guitarist Benny Yurco.

"I didn't realize how much sonic change was going to be in that until I saw it, until I heard it on the records, and as we started playing music together, the musicality really did improve dramatically," Potter says.

Their record label urged them to go into the studio with their new rocking sound, so she put the Burnett album in the vault. The Nocturnals' third album continues to gain steam as it reaches the one-year mark, and Potter's glow gets more luminous.

Despite all her success, she still has a few naysayers. When she met one of her childhood idols, she was a bit dismayed when the female singer-songwriter started questioning Potter's look.

"This whole sexy thing you're doing, I mean — you can't keep it up, you can't do that forever. Don't you want to be taken seriously as a songwriter?" Potter remembers the woman asking her. "`How do think you're going to do this when you're 50 and you're still trying to be in the mini-dresses?'"

Potter didn't skip a beat with her retort.

"I'm like, `What the (expletive) do you think Beyonce's going to be doing, tell me that? Because she's got it going on!'"

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Online:

http://www.gracepotter.com/

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Nekesa Mumbi Moody can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

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