There’s nothing like actors discussing their parts in a movie or TV show because there’s always something that veers off of what they are expected to say. These little morsels just give fans more insight.
Here’s what we can reveal in the second installment of J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts franchise, from the actors.
Cause of Leta Lestrange conflictions revealed.
“She is from one of the most established pureblood wizarding families and I understand that comes with certain preconceived notions,” says Zoe Kravitz.
“But Leta isn’t quite sure where she fits in, in terms of being good or bad. I think she is somewhere in between, as we all are. She’s quite complicated and her journey is very intense because of a secret from her past that unravels over the course of the story.”
Albus Dumbledore’s (Jude Law) past revealed.
“We all knew it was key that we separate this Dumbledore from the one we’ve all known,” says Jude Law.
“He’s decades younger and still has a lot of experience … and lot to learn. It was important to remind ourselves that while he is a gifted wizard and a good man, he is also a troubled man; he has secrets and he has flaws, just as we all do. I also love his cheekiness — his brilliance allows him to be somewhat anarchic and rebellious …”
Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and Jacob Kowalski have all kinds of bro love for each other but what happened to Queenie and Tina?
“For the first movie, J.K. Rowling created four unique characters, all of whom are outsiders and struggling in their own way,” says Redmayne. It is only through the connections they develop with each other that they thrive and find happiness and love. But in the interim, through miscommunication and circumstance, things have shifted.
In any relationship, communication is essential and if these two could just sit down, have a cup of tea, maybe a martini, talk it through …”
Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) reinstated
Had disappeared if you saw the first installment if not, little spoiler alert. But she’s safely back as an Auror and, with the arrest of Grindelwald, dutifully doing her detective work. She has no time for Queenie’s love life or even her own.
“… unfortunately the world is falling apart and we don’t have time to shoot the breeze,” says the actress.
Queenie Goldstein is clearly not in Queens anymore. (Actually, the movie was never indicated that she was).
Yet things happen and her point of view changes while in London.
“I was told certain things way, way before the script got to us so I was prepared in a certain way, says Queenie portrayer, Alison Sudol.
“However, I couldn’t wrap my head around why at all. I read the script. I still couldn’t understand. It took a lot of digging in and it took a long time and I had so many questions in notes … Ultimately you have this young lady who desperately wants to have a family because she’s an orphan and it’s always been her and her sister and then she falls in love and the man she falls in love with alienates her from her sister because her sister is a rule follower and they are not supposed to be together, these two. Right there, the foundation of her family is not solid and she wants to solidify it so badly.”
Credence may be lost but Ezra Miller isn’t or is he?
Miller admits to being somewhat extroverted in interviews but indicates it could all be an act. But he really doesn’t give away any storyline in doing so.
“It’s hard to judge any book, even by the first 75 pages or so. There are parts of me that really do, utterly identify with Credence and, certain elements of his journey on different microcosms or applied to different landscapes in my life.
Then there is the universal accessibility of suffering, of story, of the great undefinable, the unknown so am not as happy as I try to pretend to be.”
The Fantastic Beasts are back.
Creatures great and small are back in the second installment, including the tiny Bowtruckle, always in Newt’s shirt pocket. Something called a Zouwou, which is as big as one would imagine any terrifying prehistoric animal to be.
There’s a furry creature called a Niffler that uses his nose to obviously sniff out food and things to get into. The furry one has babies that are tiny images of the same. A green grass-looking creature called a Kelpie. Thestrals, that are long, sleek horse-like beings and those are just in the first part of the film.
Everyone in the cast loved working with Johnny Depp, well almost.
Katherine Waterston
I didn’t get to,” says Katherine Waterston, who says she was in one crowd scene with the actor. “I was in the nose-bleed area.”
Alison Sudol
I was nervous going in and he’s a legendary actor and you never know how an actor with such a character can be with another actor. He immediately put me at ease. He was very gentle. He’s very kind after every take. He was very generous and said lovely things about my performance, which was great because I was vulnerable, very, very vulnerable.
Eddie Redmayne
The actor was in one scene with Depp and that was at a large amphitheater.
“They had built this amphitheater in Lisden,” says Redmayne.
“They had thousands of extras; of supporting artists and Johnny had to —with that rhetoric, entice them, seduce them, rally them. It was like theatre in the round. There was a camera that was picking up all the subtlety of all the sort of protagonist that he was taking on and it was a bit of a master class.”
Ezra Miller
Miller loved how Depp “disappeared” into the character of Grindelwald.
“I had the striking experience of meeting him initially and not initially not knowing who he was,” says Miller. “I’d seen too. I’d seen him walk by and I was like, ‘Oh that’s the guy who’s playing Grindelwald.’ It’s quite a shock.”
Derek Riddell
“Johnny was great,” says the actor.
“He arrived on set on time. People say that wasn’t always the case. For us he was on set on time. He came to play. He loves Jo and her work and made that clear from the beginning.
And he had humility. He didn’t come pumping his chest out and saying, “It has to be this way!” No, no, no, he came in service of Jo (JK). He did it because of his admiration of her and her work.”
Fantastic Beasts: THe Crimes of Grindelwald opens Friday, Nov. 16.
