Ian Nathan - Inside the Magic - The Making of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Copyright © 2016 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM characters, names and related indicia are © & TM Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. WB SHIELD: TM & © WBEI.

J.K. ROWLING’S WIZARDING WORLD TM J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Publishing Rights © JKR. (s16)

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Ian Nathan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

Project Editor: Chris Smith

Editor: Georgie Cauthery

Design & layout: Simeon Greenaway

Production Manager: Kathy Turtle

HarperCollins would like to thank David Heyman, Victoria Selover, Elaine Piechowski, Melanie Swartz, Jill Benscoter, Gina Cavalier & Niki Judd.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008204594

Ebook Edition © November 2016 ISBN: 9780008221355

Version: 2017-08-07

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword by Eddie Redmayne

Introduction by David Heyman

1. Newt Scamander

A Beginner’s Guide to Magizoology

A Magizoologist’s Uniform

Newt Scamander

Eddie Redmayne

A Newt Kind of Wizard

David Yates – Director

2. New York

New York

Jacob Kowalski

Stuart Craig – Production Designer

The Shaw Family

The Age of the Automobile

3. MACUSA

Inside the Magical Congress of the United States of America

Porpentina Goldstein

Queenie Goldstein

The Goldstein Apartment

Colleen Atwood – Costume Designer

Percival Graves

President Seraphina Picquery

New York Wands

4. The New Salem Philanthropic Society

The New Salem Philanthropic Society

Balancing the Light and Dark Elements

The Barebone Family

5. The Blind Pig

A Night Out at The Blind Pig

Gnarlak

Creating the Props

6. Newt’s Case

Inside Newt’s Case

Newt’s Shed

The Deck

The Environments

7. The Fantastic Beasts

Taming the Fantastic Beasts

Designing the Beasts

Outside the Case

Inside the Case

The Puppets

The Obscurus

About the Publisher

It all started with a slightly clandestine meeting with David Yates about an unknown project. This was around Christmas time in the basement of a hidden little club in Soho, London, and there was a roaring fire. I knew that David had made the Harry Potter films, and during our meeting he began to reveal things about a screenplay that J.K. Rowling was writing. Sitting by the fire as he was telling the story, I was completely hypnotised.

Over the next year we would meet and he would gently tease me with more and more of J.K. Rowling’s ideas. I became so invested in the story, hearing all these updates of what was going on in Newt’s world, that when I was then cast I was elated. I finally got to read the script and I was astounded. J.K. Rowling had managed to encompass elements of a thriller, comedy, romance: different genres almost, and yet it was all woven together with such delicacy and was powerful emotionally. It actually had me sobbing.

What is wonderful for me in what J.K. Rowling has written, and what director David Yates has done when adapting her words, is their absolute conviction to the realness of the wizarding world.

One of my clearest memories was the day that David said, ‘Eddie, pick a wand.’ It was this extraordinarily magical moment. It sounds absurd but I felt like being a nine-year-old at Christmas. It was funny because, there I was, holding this thing – this was the moment my inner nine-year-old had been waiting for my whole life, and I had absolutely no idea what to do! Not a clue. I felt ridiculously self-conscious and got complete stage fright.

In the end I went back and watched many of Daniel, Emma and Rupert’s moments in the Potter films and looked at what their ‘wand-work’ was like. They were pretty inspiring, I must say. I may have thieved a few ideas.

After years of secretly thinking I might be able to blag a part in the Weasley clan – being borderline ginger – it was wonderful to be able to jump into this world. But what was particularly great was to fall in love with my character specifically. Newt isn’t easy. He doesn’t ask for people’s approval; he can be a bit hard and he marches to the beat of his own drum, but there is also a childlike quality to him, and you can hopefully sense from his relationship with the beasts that he has a great heart.

The whole experience of getting to play Newt was a complete riot. I’ll never forget one scene on top of the department store with this gigantic winged creature called an Occamy. Basically, the Occamy goes a wee bit crazy and lifts Newt up onto its back. When we shot it I was suspended in the air riding some kind of massive green bucking bronco (because the creature will be added later, digitally) shouting about insects and teapots, with cameras soaring around me left, right and everywhere. It felt totally, totally surreal. But, touch wood, it will end up looking pretty thrilling.

Entering the wizarding world, the world of J.K.’s imagination, has superseded all the fantastical ­expectations that I had already had. I truly count myself a lucky, lucky man.

Eddie Redmayne