This is part one of our three-part Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them set visit. For part two, on key places in the movie, go here. For part three, a look at the creatures in the movie, go here.
After the release of 2005’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, author J.K. Rowling released two companion books to further expand her wizarding world. One was Quidditch Through the Ages, a record of the ins and outs of the broomstick sport featured heavily in her main book series. The other was Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a textbook-style compendium of magical creatures. It’s the basis for Rowling’s screenplay debut, which tells the story of the author behind Fantastic Beasts, Newt Scamander.
It’s set in the U.S. in 1926, a time when the wizarding community is being persecuted by non-magical human extremists. Some 70 years before the story of Harry Potter, Newt arrived in Prohibition-era New York City on his travels with an enchanted case full of beasts, some of which escaped and threatened to expose magic to the No-Maj world.
Early on, one of the producers, Lionel Wigram, had the idea to make a documentary about this character for the movie adaptation, but Rowling shot that down. “I mean, we wouldn't have done it without Jo's permission,” producer David Heyman told us on the London set of the film late last year. “[Rowling] didn't need to go back to this world for any other reason than she wanted to.”
Said Fantastic Beasts director David Yates, who spent six years working on the Potter films, “The only limit is Jo's imagination, which is boundless, and she's taking us all on quite an extraordinary journey with this story.”
Before the world is introduced to Newt for the first time when Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them comes out on November 18, we’ve compiled our own three-part encyclopedia of the people, places and things based on our journey through the film’s sets and what we know already from the books.
THE PEOPLE
Instead of three kids, the story focuses on four adults: Newt, Jacob, Queenie and Tina
Newton Artemis Fido Scamander: Newt (Eddie Redmayne) developed an interest in magical creatures at an early age, partly because his mother bred hippogriffs. He also has a brother named Theseus, who later becomes “a very, very power auror” (“dark wizard catcher”).
Newt attended Hogwarts and was sorted into Hufflepuff house, but was later expelled for endangering a human life with a beast. Newt worked for the Ministry of Magic, eventually moving to the Beast Division. It was during this time that he penned an encyclopedic text about magical creatures that would end up being his career’s crowning achievement.
Redmayne said he met with Rowling in Leavesden, England three or four months before shooting on Fantastic Beasts began, and picked her brain about the character. “I don't know whether it’s just a paranoia from having recently having played people that lived or are living and having all this world of research that you can go and do,” he said, “but what's great about Newt is you can just go to J.K. Rowling and she gives it all.”
He did, however, research different trackers and zoologists to see how they acted around animals. “A tiger cub is born and they sleep with them,” he said of some of those he researched, “and there are all these extraordinary stories of gorillas who've grown up with humans and then go back into the wild.”
“He's probably more comfortable with the creatures than he is with people,” Heyman added.
Porpentina “Tina” Goldstein: Tina (Katherine Waterston) is working in the wand permit office at MACUSA with her sister, Queenie. “She was an auror, and she’s sort of had her wings clipped in some ways,” Redmayne said.
Heyman said, “She's someone who, as a character in the film, has been a little bit on the outside. On the fringes, and you can really see her trying to do the right thing and trying to, again, having a deep-seated intelligence.”
Tina promises to help Newt wrangle the creatures and put them back in his Pandora’s box. Based on the books, we know that she eventually marries and has children with Newt later in life.
While the world of the 1920s New York is segregated, the wizarding world isn’t so much. “I feel like there's the period the film is set in, but then there's also a lot of sort of magical permission a little bit in the world we're creating,” Waterston said. “It doesn't seem to be divided by race or sex in ways that the world was in the ‘20s or in the way America was in the ‘20s. We have a female president.”
The Goldstein sisters: Queenie and Tina
Queenie Goldstein: Queenie (Alison Sudol) works with her older sister, Tina, at MACUSA’s wand permit office. Describing the differences in the sisters’ desks, Redmayne said, “Queenie's was sort of, filled with powder, blusher and sort of totally chaotic and you know, whereas, [Tina’s] was much more, sort of, organized and on it.” He added that Queenie maintains a “wonderful, sort of free-spirited quality.”
“It's two sisters that have basically raised each other because their parents died when they were very young,” Sudol said of her character’s relationship with Tina. “So, there's a kind of mutual caring for each other. It's not like older sister/younger sister because I think in some ways Tina is more grounded and an adult. But then, Queenie has this deep empathy and such an unbelievable amount of just perception about everybody but especially about Tina.”
Queenie is also a legilimens, which means she can read minds. Unlike Severus Snape, who needs to cast a spell with his wand to read minds, Queenie is more of an empath, constantly tuned in to the thoughts of those around her.
It was important for Sudol and Waterston to continue the legacy set by Hermione in developing more female role models for audiences. “I think what I love and what I find is also a great responsibility with Queenie is she's incredibly feminine, and I grew up not seeing the strength in femininity,” Sudol explained. “I grew up kind of feeling guilty about being a girl and wanting to just be like the boys and be treated the same. I didn't wanna be different, I didn't think that beauty was something to be proud of. And what I love about Queenie is that she's incredibly smart, she's kind, she's beautiful, she has that pizzazz in femininity. She's completely unashamed about it, and not vain at all.”
Jacob Kowalski: (Dan Fogler) Jacob is a No-Maj who recently got back to New York City after enlisting in the army during World War I. Described as “a lovable guy who’s been through hell,” Jacob is a member of the working class living in an apartment in the Lower East Side when he’s thrown into a world of magic after one of the fantastic beasts bites him.
“I guess a No-Maj has never been bitten by one of these things,” he added. “So, they're like, 'What's gonna happen? Is he going to die?' So, they feel very responsible for me in the beginning 'cause they're just worried about me and my well being, which is very nice. So, they're dragging me along through their adventure and over the course of it I prove to be [a] very helpful individual. I help them recapture these creatures, and often come up with the idea that gets them out of the hairy situation. And so, over the course of the film, they become friends.”
Fogler likened his character to Bottom from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “You know, he's a baker, he's a rude mechanical, regular kind of guy. We find out he's not such a regular schmo,” he said. “As the thing goes along, we realize he's really quite unique. But he, just like Bottom, gets to play in the forest with Titania and the fairies. And he gets to play the hero and the romantic lead and the comedic maniac.”
Percival Graves: (Colin Farrell) Percival is chief security officer for the protection of wizards and the right-hand man of the Magical Congress’s (MACUSA) President Picquery, the leader of the American magical community. Percival is initially fond of Newt when he meets him because he knows his brother, Theseus -- that is, before the beasts escape.
“He has a natural aptitude for magic, but is also highly trained and somewhat powerful,” Farrell said. “There is a mystery that has descended upon the city of New York in the ‘20s and I am one of the few called ‘aurors.’ We're investigating what is going on in New York.”
He further described Percival as someone “with a keen awareness of the burden of his responsibility.” Farrell added, “He holds his position as a great honor. But also there's great responsibility that has been bestowed upon him to protect this whole world of wizards that are teetering on the brink of potential persecution.”
Credence Barebone: (Ezra Miller, who plays the Flash in the Justice League films) Credence is the mysterious adopted son of Mary Lou Barebone, leader of the New Salem Philanthropic Society that seeks to expose and kill witches and wizards. Percival Graves takes an interest in Credence, but Miller wouldn’t dive into any specifics on the character. “I cannot confirm or deny whether or not my character has now or has ever had a mother,” Miller joked.
One thing he is excited for? “I’m really excited for my action figures. I will have all of them...I definitely wanna make Credence and the Flash have a little battle.”
New Salem Philanthropic Society (aka Second Salemers): An antimagic fundamentalist group led by Mary Lou Barebone that seeks to give the Salem Witch Trials a second wind. They plastered propaganda posters all around New York that read, “Witches live among us,” “Save America from witches,” and the like.
No-Maj: The American wizarding community’s word for Muggle (i.e. nonmagic folk). The No-Majs in New York City during 1926 were becoming more aware of the magical community, while some even resorted to taking up the witch hunt into their own hands.
