By Gill Pringle
“I’m just going to sew and talk,” Katherine Waterston smiles, needle and thread in hand. “I jumped over my suitcase as I was running out the door, and the slit in the back of my skirt split up over my bum. I like it better than what I’m wearing now, so I’m just going to sew it up. I’m just seeing if I still have my skills from my theatre days.” If you need any more evidence that British actors are more down-to-earth than their American counterparts, then that’s it, right there.
Waterston – who first made a splash in TV’s Boardwalk Empire, and has also appeared in Inherent Vice and Steve Jobs, with upcoming roles in Alien: Covenant and Steven Soderbergh’s Logan Lucky – is meeting FilmInk to talk about Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, the prequel to the hugely successful Harry Potter. In a huge casting coup for the young actress, she’s scored the female lead role in the film, playing opposite Oscar winner, Eddie Redmayne (The Theory Of Everything, The Danish Girl). Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, moves the action in both time and space, setting its scene in 1920s America. Here we find Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander, field researcher in magical critters, caught up in an adventure that, according to screenwriter J.K. Rowling (penning her first work direct for the screen), has repercussions for the whole wide world, wizard and muggle alike.
Could you talk about your memories of the original series? And how do you feel about being part of this iconic, hugely popular franchise? “I feel that I should just confess. Up until now, I’d been lying in the press that I had read the books before I got the job. But somebody asked me and I was so ashamed, because by the time that we were shooting, I had just so fallen in love with the shooting, and with Jo and everything that I just felt really ashamed and I lied! So of course, everyone in my generation had read these books, but I don’t know what the hell I was reading at the time…probably something much trashier. I didn’t read the Harry Potter books, but my little brother fell into them. I was in my late teens, and he fell into them, and that was my introduction to the books. And for some reason I lied about it because I was embarrassed, but I started reading them when we started shooting the film, just because everyone was talking about all these interesting things that I didn’t know anything about. I was obviously in it by that stage, and I was very curious about the world. I had the same experience as my little brother; it’s so engaging and absorbing. Bu when everyone is reading something, I want to read something random that no one else is reading, that’s just me. As a result, I miss really big movements, and find them later. That’s the big confession. But maybe because I hadn’t read the Harry Potter books, I didn’t think about the massive shoes that we were filling until people started saying it to me. But then you need to do your job and not think about these things because they are intimidating.”
J.K. Rowling wrote the script for this film, and she was on the set a lot… “It was like a party game with her…any of the wildest, weirdest questions that you could have about this wide, entire universe, she’s already thought about it and she has an answer. It’s fun to test out. [Laughs] I remember feeling really comforted when she came to set. She was like, ‘Right, everything’s as it should be, right, you’re Tina, and that’s how I see her.’ It felt like we happened to fit the bill, rather than, ‘She’s shit, now I have to go reshape this.’”
Is it hard keeping the story under wraps? Because with the previous Harry Potter movies, everybody had read the books, so there weren’t really any secrets… “I find it terrifying! It’s so much fun to experience it without knowing what’s coming. Even trailers can sometimes interfere with that. You hear a joke in a trailer, and then you see the joke in the movie and you already know it. It’s nice to keep it to ourselves, but it’s hard when you’re asked a specific question to only half answer it. There should be an ejection button on our seats, for when we talk about something that we shouldn’t!”
David Yates has so much experience with this whole world after directing so many Harry Potter films… “I’ve been trying to articulate what it’s like to be around David, and it occurred to me this morning that it’s like the wonderful kindergarten teacher that you had, or if you had a parent who was really good at reading stories to you as a child. When he starts talking about the world, you find yourself falling into it. He sees it all so well, with such detail. You’re just there, you know? It makes your job so much easier.”
Do you believe in magic in everyday life? “It’s easy to believe that there’s more than we know…”
What is magic in your everyday life? “Getting hired! Truly! But it’s the same stuff that the film’s about: finding people that you connect with…that’s hard, and unusual. And, yes, employment.”
Did David ask you to do a chemistry test, for the role? “Oh, God, isn’t that a nightmare! It was at The Crosby Hotel in New York…I can’t walk by it without breaking out in hives! It’s forever ruined for me because we did the chemistry test in there. I think that I have Post Audition Stress Disorder! It’s so nerve wracking, because you know the thing that you’re supposed to deliver, and you don’t know if you will in that moment, and you can’t manufacture or fake it anyway, so it’s kind of not up to you. But we did find ourselves running around with wands in that moment. But I don’t think I would have gotten the job if Eddie hadn’t been a neurotic fiend…it was a relief to not be the only nervous person in the room!”
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is released in cinemas on November 17.
