"Harry Potter" actress Emma Watson said that for years she had no idea how much money she was earning from her role as Hermione Granger in the hit movie franchise, and that she felt sick when she finally realized.

Watson, 20, told the British edition of Vogue magazine's December issue that she was 17 or 18 years old when she had a "money conversation" with her father.

"By the third or fourth film, the money was starting to get ... serious. I had no idea. I felt sick, very emotional. It was a real shock," the actress told Vogue in the interview.

Until then, she had been living on an allowance of about 50 pounds ($80) a week. She took a money management course and she now has an estimated fortune of about 20 million pounds.

Watson, who is currently a student at Brown university in the United States, is pictured on the front cover of British Vogue sporting her new pixie-style short haircut. The magazine hits news stands in Britain on Thursday.

She said she cut her hair after she finished shooting the final two movies in the "Harry Potter" series.

"For the nine years I was on 'Harry Potter' I was contractually obliged not to cut my hair, not to tan," she said. "All the normal things girls do, I couldn't. So when I got the chance to change my appearance, this is what I did."

The seventh film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" opens in Britain, the United States and much of the world on November 19. The final movie will be released in July 2011.