Here’s some more inside scoop with “Fantastic Beasts” cast members as we interview with Ezra Miller, Claudia Kim, and Alison Sudol!
Going into the first film, you probably thought about what it would mean to become part of the Potter Universe and all the fandom that it entails, now that you are fully a part of that world, has it been expected or different than what you expected it to be?
Ezra: Well because, I, long ago came unstuck in time, I have the tralfamadorian view and so I don’t even know, like I already know how it ends and everything and so I can’t even pretend to speculate cause it’s just unfair, it’s Dumbledore like omnipotence… F*ck that, that is a joke. For me like everything that excited me so much going into this first film and everything that I found so engaging and wonderful about working on that first project was quadrupled and massively amplified on this one. The hardcore initiative taken by every single person who worked on these films, to up the ante. For this second film, everyone was on the mentality of but if the next one isn’t 200 times better and cooler in every single way then like we’re gonna hit our heads against the wall like Dobby the house elf before he got freed.
Ezra, continuing with his humor, took the role of the interviewer and decided to ask Claudia some questions of his own.
Ezra: “Claudia how was your experience working on the first film? How was your experience on film 4 of Harry Potter? I loved your performance in that one, I loved your performance in 7 part one, 7 part two.”
Claudia: “It’s like I’m your ancestor or something, it’s good to be in this new age now.”
What does Harry Potter mean to you, is this just another role?
Claudia: “No, I was really into Greek mythology as a kid and then getting to read the Harry Potter books was just it was so amazing since the first book and I had to get it. You know how in Devil wears Prada she’s like ‘the kids want the books before they’re printed’, it was that excitement.”
It’s definitely clear that all the cast members are just as excited to be a part of the Harry Potter world just like anyone else would be! Ezra shares with us just how many details are added to the set to truly recreate these magical worlds, whether the audience sees it or not.
Both of you are in such special effect driven scenes what’s sort of practical things did you have to sort of act off of onset, or did you have any sort of practical sets?
Ezra: “Oh my gosh, yeah it’s immense and immersive. The biggest CGI thing that happens to Credence on set is that arena scene you see towards the end of the film — the underground amphitheatre. The only CGI that creates a set in that way really is that we shot as one half of itself with two different groups of people, and then it was fused together to make that circular amphitheatre. Outside of that Stewart is building these with the construction crew and our amazing production design teams and the incredible props department and set dec departments who flesh out this stuff way more than is necessary. Which they were already doing on the first film and so then the second film they’re like we already flesh out all the sets way more than is necessary, but for the second film we have to do it way way way more than is even remotely necessary … Yeah but this is just unnecessary in the greatest way, it benefits only us. We go back into the back of a shop that we’re never gonna shoot a scene in but it’s part of magical Paris and so they built it completely and the cash register is filled with the appropriate magical French money and there are orders written out in the restaurants put up on the place. It’s pretty fun for us.”
Of course we don’t want to give you Potterheads any spoilers but Claudia and Ezra do what many fans do; wonder what lies ahead for the characters and plot out what would be awesome to see, as we all piece this journey of Fantastic Beasts together.
Will we get a chance to see way more of her [Nagini] story in upcoming installments?
Claudia: “Of course I wish I could- I wish I knew more, really. I want to know, does she ever learn Parseltongue or does she meet Tom Riddle or does she get to go into Hogwarts or anything, does she see any of that?”
Ezra: “That’s really interesting dude, yeah is she a Parselmouth already I mean, definitely when she’s a snake. All snakes can speak Parseltongue so when you’re a snake you would presume, right?”
Claudia: “I don’t know, that’s all a mystery to me too. Maybe she just hasn’t discovered that ability.”
Ezra: “In human form!”
Claudia: “In human form or maybe she has, secretly.”
Ezra: “Oh! Secretly? It’s so exciting! Oh my gosh.”
Claudia: “Yeah just keeping an open mind on that.”
Ezra: “It’s gonna be the greatest movie of all time, cause this is the greatest movie now.”
We also had a chance to chat with Fantastic Beasts star Alison Sudol, who plays Queenie!
When you get these scripts you crack them open and you’re like ‘oh I can’t wait to see what happens with my characters next’ what was that feeling like for you when you cracked opened that script and saw you had a great relationship to dig into?
Alison: “I knew it was coming and that I had been told ahead of time what the overarching arch was but you know my reaction to it was really like ‘aahh, ooww’ you know? Like, ‘oh no, ugh’ and my biggest fear was that, because you don’t have a lot of time and there are a lot of storylines in this film and there’s a lot to convey and this is a very big journey, that you would stay with Queenie and understand why she’s making all the decisions that she’s making so when she makes a particular decision [don’t worry no spoilers!] that it hurts but it doesn’t feel like it’s not who you thought she was, that’s kind of my biggest concern and I talked extensively to David Yates about it and Jo, and Jo’s advice was like ‘trust your instincts’ and so we worked a lot on it just to try and make it feel grounded, but you know it was a painful thing to go through.”
Not only is there a plot twist for many of you fans that have been on this emotional rollercoaster with Queenie and Jacob but Alison lets us in on some other painful experiences on set, literally.
Alison: “I’m not gonna lie the first one was way more fun. The first one I was just running around with my friends and the second one I’m alone and I’m getting rained on and you know abused by a teapot. I fell quite hard as well on that scene, it was kind of brutal. It was a lot of rain and I was running quite fast, and then there are two pairs of shoes, and one pair had grips and the other didn’t and the pair that had grips were so soaking that I couldn’t put them on, so I put on the other pair and ran and just fell completely flat on my suitcase, thank God I fell on my suitcase because otherwise I would have been face first but yeah I felt like the Tin Man the next day, I could barely walk.”
It’s really through Queenie that the audience maybe even begins to understand why people would follow the antagonist, why good people might do bad things. What did you want to show about their relationship prior to that to make sure that we were on board that she’s coming from a good place.
Alison: “Well I think the ‘you’re crazy, you’re a coward’ thing. You can’t call her crazy, it hurts to the core and you can’t call him a coward, it is the same sort of pain. And you know they both did it to each other so that is like, it kind of skews you out of thinking in your normal rationale. It’s a hard one to come back from when you’re so triggered, right? These two people who really love each other are not able to see straight because their wound has been pressed hard and so I think that really formed what happened after that.”
If any of you are wondering if we’ll be seeing more of Johnny Depp in this movie, the answer is you betcha! Alison’s character, Queenie, has various scenes with him so we definitely asked her how that experience was for her.
What was it like working with Johnny Depp?
Alison: “You know he was a really great scene partner. He understood that I was nervous working with him. I didn’t know him and I’ve never worked with him and he’s obviously a legendary actor and he immediately put me at ease. He was making jokes but then he was also very respectful in the work environment, very supportive after every take that I did, and you know that he was very gentle on set and I really appreciated that because we were in some kind of difficult scenes together so he was a really wonderful person to act with.”
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is out in theatres November 16th!
For more exclusive content with the cast check out our other Fantastic Beasts articles.
