Emma Watson in her latest role as Bling Ring thief Nicki for British GQ.

Emma Watson in her latest role as Bling Ring thief Nicki for British GQ.

Emma Watson shows some serious sexiness on the cover of British GQ magazine’s upcoming issue. She strikes a pose as Nicki, her “amoral” character from her upcoming movie “The Bling Ring.” Hello Julia Roberts.

Watson wears a dress on the cover not seen since Roberts wore it in the 1990 movie “Pretty Woman,” with Richard Gere. She plays a hooker who falls for a tycoon.

Watson, 22, acquits herself well. Her navel peeks through a steel ring holding the dress together while she pulls down one side to give a peek at a tattoo perilously low on her hip.

“When I read the script and I realized that essentially it was a meditation on fame and what it’s become to our society, I had to do it,” she told the magazine.

Emma Watson Lays on the Bling

“The character is everything that I felt strongly against — she’s superficial, materialistic, vain, amoral. She’s all of these things and I realized that I hated her. How do you play someone you hate?

“But I found it really interesting and it gave me a whole new insight into what my job or my role as an actress could be,” she explained. “This has been a really big departure for me. It’s a really big character. That’s so exciting for me because it meant I was really acting.”

The Sofia Coppola-directed movie is based on a true story about a teen-age gang that ransacked the homes of their favorite celebrities to ramble through their closets, wear their clothes and ultimately steal whatever they could.

Police cracked the case in 2009, largely through security surveillance tapes and the confessions of one ring member. Before that, they had hit the homes of such celebrities as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

Emma said she is open to just about any role these days, except those typically English period dramas that Keira Knightley is so good at. “I didn’t want to do was get myself into a corset because I was worried I would never get out again,” she says.

“I knew it would be a really uncomfortable thing to do, but I felt… I had to dive into something really different,” she added.

Indeed, check out her photos to see the transformation, and follow TheImproper on Twitter for the latest film and movie updates.