finished script cast a remarkable spell – it was a Harry Potter film that was not a Harry Potter film. While set in the same wizarding world with many shared reference points – not least that Scamander is a former pupil of Hogwarts – this was a different kind of magical film. One less about the fulfilment of a childhood destiny than the consequences of magic spilling out into the real world, albeit one as thrilling as New York in the 1920s. Newt has to fix his own mistakes, and in doing so fix himself. It is a film about grown-ups learning to grow up.
The wizard looks to be in jeopardy in MACUSA’s Death Cell.
Newt’s leather journal is decorated with a gold monogram of his initials.
Concept art by Peter Popken of Newt’s steamship arriving in New York.
When several of Newt’s fantastic beasts escape from his battered leather case, Newt must reclaim his extraordinary escapees before they become front-page news in one of the newspapers belonging to magnate Henry Shaw Sr. (Jon Voight). He is aided in his dilemma by a disgraced Auror (one of the wizarding world’s police force) named Porpentina ‘Tina’ Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), as well as her beautiful, free-spirited younger sister Queenie (Alison Sudol). And, indeed, a luckless No-Maj (the American wizarding community’s word for Muggle), and aspiring baker named Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), who is about to have his horizons significantly widened. Assuming that no one Obliviates his memory.
Complicating matters, New York is not receptive to magic. Led by the glowering Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton), The New Salem Philanthropic Society (or ‘Second Salemers’) agitates on street corners about the threat of a magical revival. Mary Lou has in tow three sullen, adopted children: Credence (Ezra Miller), Chastity (Jenn Murray) and Modesty (Faith Wood-Blagrove). Credence, especially, appears to be deeply troubled.
The Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA) therefore has to operate in secret and any public demonstrations of magic are expressly forbidden, by either man or beast. Suave, elusive Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), Director of Magical Security and head of the Auror division, is paying very close attention to what Newt and Tina are up to. And as Newt’s ship docks, an even greater peril has stirred in Manhattan – one that could have far more dangerous consequences than the odd missing Niffler or Erumpent.
All of the filmmakers are keen to point out the themes that run through the story. Darker ideas concerning prejudice and repression, and ecological and political veins that touch upon the way our world works right now. And more intimately, the Rowlingesque celebration of discovering kinship in the unlikeliest places, and being who you are without apology.
‘Jo is interested in outsiders, people who are misunderstood or slightly out of kilter with the rest of society,’ says David Yates. ‘In this case one of our characters, Newt Scamander, is an outsider because he’s a Brit in New York. He’s an outsider because he believes and cherishes and collects extraordinarily dangerous, beautiful, exotic magical beasts that are banned from the wizarding world. So he’s a classic Jo outsider. Yet he hooks up with some other characters in New York and sort of finds intimacy with them. It’s really a beautiful journey for Newt.’
Costume designer Colleen Atwood calls Newt an ‘off-the-page character’. Everything she needed to know about him was right there in the script. ‘He’s been living in the wilderness,’ she says. ‘Therefore he adapts everything to what he needs in his own world.’
Nevertheless, he still needed to be able to blend in with the world of the 1920s. The trick was to take the general look of the age – what Atwood likes to call its ‘silhouette’ – and make his clothes a little mismatched and ill-fitting. There would be something quirky about him, but not clownish. If there tended to be a lot of warm tones in the menswear of the era – browns and so forth – Newt would wear something cooler.
‘So I chose a dirty peacock blue for his coat,’ Atwood explains, ‘and that was sort of his defining look – he wears that the most. The layers underneath sort of work with the jungle and other places that he has been.’
Naturally, there would be more to Newt’s overcoat than meets the eye. ‘We had all kinds of pockets that had purposes in the script,’ says Atwood, whose designs are as influenced by requirements of plot as much as character. ‘His little friends hide in there and then he has some of his medicines in there, and his cures. So I researched magician’s coats and learned how they had all these secret pockets.’
Atwood actually begins her design process during rehearsal, studying how an actor moves, all the little character traits he might be giving the part. The most important element in any costume is how it fits not just an actor’s body but also their performance. Reaching that indefinable moment when actor, role and costume become one and the same. And she loves how Eddie Redmayne became ‘integrated’ with his costume. ‘He sort of lives in it,’ she laughs. ‘He makes it feel like his own clothes.’
Redmayne has loved that he really only wears one outfit the whole way through the film, but changes as he does: ‘The collar pops open. The trousers go into his boots. I suppose there’s a slightly eccentric, nerdy quality to him that turns into more like an adventurer by the end of the film.’
Sketch shows how the interior of Newt’s coat might look. Costume designed by Colleen Atwood, drawn by Warren Holder.
‘WE HAD ALL KINDS OF POCKETS THAT HAD PURPOSES IN THE SCRIPT’
NEWTON ARTEMIS FIDO SCAMANDER, MAGIZOOLOGIST, IS A TYPE OF WIZARD WE HAVEN’T ENCOUNTERED BEFORE IN THE WIZARDING WORLD.
He has made it his life’s work to study and understand magical creatures. J.K. Rowling describes him as ‘weather-beaten’ and ‘wiry’. Played by the highly versatile and very English actor, Eddie Redmayne, he has the appearance of a bewildered student dressed in an ill-fitting bow-tie, blue greatcoat, and turned-up trousers. And he is inseparable from a leather case that has seen better days.
‘What I love about Newt,’ says Redmayne, ‘is he’s a passionate fellow. He’s got his own agenda. He’s got his own interests. In many ways, he’s not a people pleaser.’
No matter how dangerous, or peculiar looking, Newt is of the opinion that every beast is fantastic. It’s in the company of humans he’s all at sea. He is not what you would call one of nature’s conversationalists.
‘He’s an oddball,’ beams Redmayne happily. ‘He feels more at home with creatures than he does with human beings.’
As director David Yates explains, ‘He’s one of the very few wizards who believes that creatures have a place in the wizarding world and they should be cherished and appreciated. Everybody else thinks he’s nuts, because they’re so dangerous. So he’s a bit of a lone figure.’