"Harry Potter" actress Emma Watson is giving up acting for a year. The 25-year-old British star confirmed that she's putting her career on hold to concentrate on her personal development, and she's taking on gender studies in the process.

"I'm doing a huge amount of reading and study just on my own. I almost thought about going and doing a year of gender studies, then I realized that I was learning so much by being on the ground and just speaking with people and doing my reading," Watson said.

Watson and HeForShe

The actress' involvement in the United Nation's HeForShe initiative, which focuses on projects that push for gender equality, influenced the actress' decision to self-study. She also revealed that there's a lot she has to do for the organization. "I'll take another field trip in the next two or three months. We are organizing a HeForShe arts week, a university tour, and launching the HeForShe website."

Watson and Our Shared Self

If these activities are not enough to keep her year occupied, Watson hopes to accomplish reading one book a week while she's touching base with groups of people for her work in the foundation. The actress established an online book club called Our Shared Self, which already boasts more than 110,000 members from all over the world.

Aside from discussing books, members also share their opinions and personal experiences on subjects covering feminism and gender equality. The club members also organize regular meet-ups.

"I'm reading so much and exposing myself to so many new ideas. It almost feels like the chemistry and the structure of my brain is changing so rapidly sometimes," Watson further said.

In January, Watson invited the public to join her book club by posting a link on her Twitter. Her mother helped her hatch the idea when she was mulling over getting into gender studies. "She was like, 'It feels like you'd be trying to prove to everyone that you're smart and trying to prove something by doing that. You can prove that you care about it by spending time listening and talking to as many people."

Watson's Future Movies

But fans of the actress will not be missing Watson's absence on the big screen too much since she has two movies awaiting their theater debut -- the live adaptation of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" with Dan Stevens and Luke Evans and the thriller "The Circle" with Tom Hanks.