Transcript of interview taken on the set of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore – all copyright to Warner Bros.
– On Preparing For The Role of Grindelwald
“Normally you have a meeting with the director, you read the script, you discuss the script, and after a while we agree that, let’s go and do it, and we have a couple months of prepping; and that was obviously not the case here. I got the phone call on a Friday and I flew to London on a Monday – so that was really fast. But having said that, I must say it’s not been that different in the sense of working. It’s been a tight-knit family for good reason, they’ve done two films before this one, but they’ve been welcoming me with open arms and David is just a fantastic director who makes everybody feel welcome.”
– On FB3’s Plot Points
“The story itself, I think, is one of a recognisable story – the drama of someone who believes he’s doing the right thing, and a lot of people believe he’s not doing the right thing – that drama is constantly around us in our daily lives. And on top of that you have some beautiful relationships between people that I think we are exploring in this film, even more so that we’ve done in the other ones. And then on top of that we have the Fantastic Beasts, and maybe this time we have the cutest of them all in this film.”
– On Grindelwald’s Character
“I see a man who wants to make the world a better place. The means by which he wants to achieve that is not necessarily what everybody else is agreeing on, but his goal is not necessarily insane, in the sense that he definitely means it will be a better place if they follow his lead. So he has a case – the question is, though, how he’s going to achieve his goals.”
– On Grindelwald’s Relationships
“He has some bonds with certain people – the most important one for him is obviously Albus Dumbledore, he has a past with him. So I think that we put a lot of our eggs in that basket, so this was a film about a broken-up relationship, dreams crashing, and goals that were not being met. He’s an odd man because he picks some allies that he knows are not fully on his side so there’s a little game for him; he seems to take pleasure in manipulating people that he knows are not a believer of him. But obviously, if he can turn them completely, it’s a win-win situation; if he can’t, he will have a very fun and good time with them. It’s also an old saying – keep your enemies very very tight, very close. Queenie’s a fantastic tool as well, she has the ability to read peoples minds, and that can come in very handy.
Credence is one of the keys to victory. I mean, Dumbledore is a magnificent, powerful wizard, and since I cannot make a move on Dumbledore, and he’s in the way of me gaining absolute power, Credence is the key because he is a young, extraordinarily powerful man. He’s not completely in control of his powers, but I can guide him. So I take him under my wings and I treat him well, I see the pain he’s in and I encourage him to use it for something good for humanity, or for the wizard world, and I think he buys that ticket. He’s a very complex character and I think that Ezra is doing a fantastic job bringing him to life.”
– On Working With David Yates
“David is an interesting director; I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anyone who never said no, ‘no’, not like that. He’s just really pleased with what we do, and then he will say, ‘But can we also try something else’, and that’s the closest he will get to a no. He’ll be like, ‘yes, that’s very..and I really like it, but can we also try this’ – that’s his way of saying that didn’t work. But it’s a very positive way of approaching us and it creates an atmosphere on set that is like, ‘absolutely, let’s try something else’. It’s just trying different things and after a while we have it, let’s move on. I really enjoy working like that, I must say.”
– On the Sets
“Sets are something that we- we will walk in and the first time we see it we will go like everybody else goes hopefully when they watch the film, we will go, ‘Wow. Look at this’, and we will spend a good half hour doing that and then we will have to take our fanboy hat off and start working, because obviously these characters are used to these settings. This is their daily life and for us it’s just flabbergasting.”
– On What Fans Will Like
“We have all the wizards, we have the muggles, we have all the creatures, we have all the beasts in different variations, and we have probably the cutest one ever in this film – the qilin. And on top of that you have relationships that are, I think it’s like a step further than the very young generation of Harry Potter, these are an older version of that where the relationships are more mature. Especially you will obviously get Jacob and Queenie which is, in many ways, the heart and soul of this film, but you will also see the Dumbledore and Grindelwald relationship, and many others, whether they are friendships or whether they are partners.”
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will be available to buy on DVD/BluRay/4K from Monday July 25th.
