as if it had already seen years of service.
‘It had quite a lot of character,’ says a satisfied Bohanna: ‘chips, knocks and bangs to show a well-worked life.’
As soon as Eddie Redmayne read the script he knew he had to play Newt Scamander. ‘I found it funny. I found it thrilling. I found it dramatic,’ he says. ‘It took all the imagination and escapism of Harry Potter to the New York of flappers and prohibition. It was just a really exciting place to be.’
Newt, he recognized, was a ‘wonder’ of a role.
Which is a good thing. The core team of producers had originally put together a long list of all the stars they thought might be right to fill the boots of their eccentric Magizoologist. It was full of great actors and star names. But something strange had happened. The more they worked on the script, and the better they got to know Newt, the shorter the list became. Before they knew it, there was only one name left.
‘It all kind of led to Eddie,’ says director David Yates. In fact, it was like a spell – once you thought of him, you couldn’t think of anyone else. It was as if he was already Newt.
‘What Eddie has in spades is soulfulness,’ Yates explains. ‘I also love the shape of Eddie. He’s got an extraordinary shape, this vertiginousness. And I loved the idea of Eddie doing funny stuff, because he has done all this lovely serious stuff. Once we got Eddie it was about fitting the world around him.’
Getting Redmayne, however, wasn’t a foregone conclusion. The London-born actor had deservingly won an Oscar for his remarkable portrayal of the scientist Stephen Hawking afflicted with a rare form of motor neurone disease in The Theory of Everything, and was about to embark on the equally demanding drama, The Danish Girl. After maturing from theatre and television work into films as diverse as My Week with Marilyn and Les Misérables, he was now one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood. As Yates admits, he could practically do anything he wanted.
But this wasn’t just anything; this was a script by J.K. Rowling set in her legendary wizarding world. Redmayne called back as soon as he could.
He loved it.
‘One of the things I love most is the variety,’ he says. ‘It jumps seamlessly between genres from physical comedy into a love story into action.’
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was about far more than casting spells and tracking down runaway beasts. As with all of J.K. Rowling’s work, there were hidden depths. Redmayne insists that Newt is far from a straightforward hero. ‘Throughout the film you realize that for all the wonder and excitement of his life there is a hole in there in some ways. There is a sadness and complexity in there.’
While making sure he was fluent in all the details of the wizarding world by rewatching the Harry Potter films, re-reading the books, and going over the script with a microscope, Redmayne met up with real zoologists. The script had described Newt as being like the great television presenter and animal expert, David Attenborough, and he wanted to understand why scientists devote their lives to studying animals.
His research took him to safari parks where he spoke to experts in animal breeding and discovered the extraordinary relationships they had developed with animals. ‘They literally had new-born cubs sleep in their beds with them,’ says an
astonished Redmayne.
There was also something about the way they moved. Anyone tracking a wild animal has to be incredibly silent. They turn their feet outwards, placing each footstep with the utmost care, or even crawl along the floor. Redmayne points out how in J.K. Rowling’s script she says that Newt ‘walks his own walk.’
Eddie Redmayne relaxes on set.
Newt and Tina are careful to remain hidden inside MACUSA.
The camera follows Eddie Redmayne’s gaze as Newt looks up.
Newt & Tina look for answers.
‘HE’S SO CHARMING AND FUNNY. AND HE BRINGS A REAL SENSITIVITY TO NEWT THAT I DON’T THINK A LOT OF ACTORS COULD PULL OFF.’
Such was Redmayne’s dedication not just to his part but the film as a whole that days after he agreed to play Newt, he was on a plane to New York to spend a weekend meeting the various actors who were up for the roles of Jacob, Queenie and Tina. Yates is proud of how the actor took it all in his stride.
‘It was like one of those Japanese game shows,’ he laughs. ‘He spent forty-eight hours in a hotel room doing the same scene with different actors. And out of that we were able to clearly see who was right for those roles.’
Out of that weekend of auditions they found the three actors who gelled perfectly with their Newt: Dan Fogler (as innocent Jacob), Katherine Waterston (as resolute Tina), and Alison Sudol
(as dreamy Queenie).
‘J.K. Rowling, David Yates and David Heyman were really keen to make the chemistry work between these people,’ says Redmayne. ‘It was wonderful to work with three such brilliant people, who all have such different qualities. We’re all bound up by this sense of responsibility. We don’t want to screw this up. We just want to do the characters proud.’
Fogler, whose character Jacob becomes almost a comic sidekick to Newt, claims they were all inspired by the excellence and strangeness of their lead wizard.
‘He’s so charming and funny. And he brings a real sensitivity to Newt that I don’t think a lot of actors could pull off.’
Waterston became in awe of his diligence to the tiniest gesture. ‘It was as if his work was never done,’ she says, having shared so much of the film with him. ‘It’s always more fun to work with people who set the bar really high. Plus, he’s not a jerk, which helps too!’
For Redmayne, entering this world has been all he dreamed it would be and more. He had half suspected he would face ‘a world of green and blue curtains’ but he was staggered by the scope and scale of the sets. ‘The entire world is fastidiously detailed, from New York in the 1920s, with its shop fronts and the cobbles on the street, to the interior of Newt’s case, which is more of an abstract world and yet fully realized. What has been so amazing to me is you read Jo’s script and imagine what it is like, then you arrive on set and it is bigger, better and wilder than your own imagination.’
Redmayne claims that he couldn’t have had two better guides through this world than the ‘two Davids’ – Heyman and Yates. ‘I can’t think of two more passionate people to take these stories into the world of film,’ he says. ‘They are scrupulous with character, but allow you the freedom and space to come up with your own ideas.’
He has also been enormously grateful that J.K. Rowling has remained so close to the production, visiting the set with updates to the script and yet more knowledge to impart on every aspect of the wizarding world.
‘We just jumped straight into his character,’ he laughs, ‘and she gave me all of his backstory, and answered any question I had about him and this world and all the beasts. For an actor that’s the dream.’