Eddie Redmayne on being part of the Fantastic Beasts quartet
By Dan Selcke
Eddie Redmayne, who plays lead Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, talks about the unique pressures of headlining a tentpole picture.
This time two weeks from now, most of us will have taken in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Warner Bros’ new entry into the pantheon of movies set in J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. In the meantime, the studio is turning the hype machine up to 11, with interviews with cast and crew members coming in at a gallop. In a new one with Eddie Redmayne in The Guardian, the Fantastic Beasts frontman teased what he could, while trying to downplay his role as the face of a new multimillion franchise. “Well, I feel the thing has been sold as Newt Scamander at the front,” he said. “[B]ut it’s actually a quartet: it’s Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol and Dan Fogler
On-set reports seem to back up Redmayne’s claim that Fantastic Beasts is more of an ensemble show. But as he points out, the movie has definitely been sold with Newt at the center. It’s Newt, not Newt and friends, who has featured most prominently on posters, for example.
Is Redmayne nervous about his new superstardom? “Of course you feel pressure,” he said. “Also, particularly because I loved the Potter films. There was something so warming about being able to dive back into that world every year or two. And if you’ve enjoyed something, you don’t want to be the one who comes in and screws it up.”
"But pressure’s there with every film. With The Theory of Everything it was knowing Stephen [Hawking] and Jane and the family would see the film. With The Danish Girl it was all the people that I’d met in preparation for the film who came from the trans community. It’s pressure here of a different type, which is called hardcore fandom."
Ah, the hardcore fandom. No matter how terrific Redmayne’s Oscar-winning performance was in The Theory of Everything, that kind of movie doesn’t play to sold-out rooms at the San Diego Comic-Con. For better or worse, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them did, and Redmaybe found the situation “intense.”
"The whole situation is created like you are meant to go on like a rock star. I remember feeling really nervous beforehand, waiting in the wings, and [co-star] Colin Farrell was giving me a little back massage going, ‘It’s going to be fine, Eddie, it’s going to be fine.’"
Despite his success, Redmayne comes across as someone still bothered by nerves, which is probably a good thing for a performer. And Fantastic Beasts represented some new challenges. “For this, it was working with a lot of invisible creatures that weren’t there and trying to find a way to negotiate that,” he said. “And Theory and The Danish Girl were both eight-week shoots and this was a six-month shoot, so it’s the difference between a sprint and a marathon. So there were moments on this where I was like, ‘No, no, no, this is the hardest.’ I think it’s probably just human nature.”
Next: The Fantastic Beasts cast on relating the movie’s lessons To real life
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine Warner Bros. choosing a more likable frontman. If Fantastic Beasts is going to last for five movies, it means we’ll be spending a lot of time with Redmayne. There are worse fates.