“Fantastic Beasts” Roundup: British Teenager Discusses Being an Auror

We’ve been busy with all the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child news recently, but suddenly, there seems to be a slew of new Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them information and clips.

First up, is director David Yates, who spoke about the film at the premiere for Tarzan. He said,

It’s slightly more liberating because it’s all coming out of Jo’s (Rowling’s) head – these stories she’s creating. No one quite has ownership of them yet in terms of having a relationship with the material other than having a relationship with the movie when it comes out.

When we adapted the books, we’d always have to leave out things you hated leaving out because they didn’t quite work in the structure of the storytelling for the movie, or the movie would just be far too long. With this, it’s just pure Jo, from the first page to the last page.

You can see a video of Yates talking about the film below.

From familiar faces, to new ones – a British teenager, Zak Nimmo, who landed a role as an Auror in the upcoming film, shared a little bit about his experiences filming and not knowing who Eddie Redmayne was!

I’d never done acting before, and I was put with a really experienced lad to do a scene. I had to be violent, and I really got into the role. I was holding this lad and screaming in his face. It worked, and I got the role through that. I’m not allowed to say a lot about the film, so I can’t say what my character’s name is, but I was asked to be something called an [A]uror, whose job it is to fight [D]ark [M]agic.

Zak talked about not recognizing the star of the film, Eddie Redmayne.

It was quite embarrassing, actually. I didn’t know who he was, and I didn’t think twice when this lad came over to me when I was standing outside one day. I asked him if he was in the film, and he said, ‘yeah, you could say that’. After he left my mate came over to me and broke the news to me.

If you want more behind-the-scenes conversation, then make sure to check out Episode 14 of SpeakBeasty, where they spoke to extra Mitchell Thornton about his experiences on set.

Elsewhere on the site: 

The script for the second Fantastic Beasts film has been finished by J.K. Rowling.

Details about a magical device seen in the trailer are discussed.

The history and Houses of American wizarding school Ilvermorny were released.

Bloomsbury released further details about the reissue of the Fantastic Beasts book in 2017.

A special screening of Fantastic Beasts was announced for November in New York.

A featurette titled “A New Hero” was released, featuring J.K. Rowling, Eddie Redmayne, and clips from the film.

A new episode of SpeakBeasty, discussing everything going on in the Fantastic Beasts world, was released today. Catch up with previous episodes here.

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That’s it for this edition of the Fantastic Beasts roundup! Let us know what your highlight is in the comments below.