By Gill Pringle
A breakout in the acclaimed TV series, Transparent, Seattle-born Alison Sudol now takes a further step into the limelight in J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, playing Queenie Goldstein, a mind reading witch and sister to Tina Goldstein, an investigator with The Magical Congress Of The United States Of America who becomes involved with Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander, a wizard and field researcher in magical critters who becomes caught up in an adventure in 1920s New York. Sexy, breathy, kooky, and utterly charming (“I call her Caroline Monroe, Marilyn’s cousin,” says co-star, Dan Fogler, who plays her kinda sorta romantic interest. “She’s just very vivacious and feminine”), Queenie is a real highlight of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, and the actress who plays her is on her way to the big time…
Could you briefly talk about your character? “I play Queenie Goldstein, and she is a magical person…she’s a witch. She has a very beautiful and unusual form of magic, which is that she can read people’s minds, and it’s quite interesting how that’s shaped her as a person. There’s a lack of self-consciousness about her because she’s constantly reading into other people, and so she’s not focused on herself. The amount of empathy that she has for other people is extraordinary. She’s also fun, and light and joyful, but there’s a deep wisdom to her because of this gift that she has, which is also a huge responsibility. She’s very feminine. She’s strong and she’s soft, and she’s not apologising for anything. It was such a joy to play her every day.”
What was the casting process like? “I went in for a meeting with the casting director, Fiona Weir, who’s just an incredible woman. We were talking about empathy and kindness, which is pretty unusual for a general meeting. She said after about five minutes of talking, ‘Okay, I want you to read something for me, but I’m going to need you to sign an NDA first.’ Like, okay! Then she described Queenie to me, and I fell in love with her kindness and beauty, and I came back the next day to audition. I didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks. I was devastated. Then three weeks later maybe, I got a call from my agent saying that they wanted me to do a screen test. Then I went to New York, and we had three days of lots of different interactions with people, because what they were trying to do was find four people that would have a bond instantly, and it’s not something that you can fake. Then I eventually found out, and it was this amazing dream come true, and I had to move to England.”
Like your character, do you wish that you could read minds? “I think it’s quite a burden, as much as it is a gift, to not be able to help reading into people. But I find it’s a great joy for me, to get past chit-chat and actually find out what’s going on inside someone else’s mind and heart. It’s quite frustrating when people won’t go there with you, but I find that most of the time, people just need to be asked the right question. With a little bit of curiosity, we all want to be known, and we all want to be seen. Queenie sees more than people necessarily want to divulge, because there’s no filter, it’s just what’s in there, but I think there’s a basic desire to find human connection, and the only way to really connect is by being really honest.”
Tina and Queenie are sisters, but they’re so different… “It’s a lovely dynamic, because we’re so different, and yet we essentially raised each other, because our parents passed away when we were kids. There’s this deep love and care, and a strength between the two of them, because no matter what, we are going to look after each other. We don’t need to make a big deal out of it: it’s just a fact that they love each other.”
How did you get into acting? “My parents were actors and acting teachers, and I was in a commercial when I was three. And then when I got a little bit older, I didn’t want to touch acting at all, because it’s a very difficult life. You have to put yourself out on the line constantly. You are your product. I saw how many hearts it broke, living in LA. But I love movies so much, and I would watch movies, and I would have this feeling in my gut when I saw a character that I wanted to play, or a world that I wanted to live in. I was like, ‘I’m never going to do that unless I do it!’ Then I studied acting for about nine months, before I would even go on an audition, and I cried a lot and I was going to quit, and then I went on one more audition and I cried a little bit less and I was going to quit, and then I went on one more audition, and then I got Transparent. That was the most incredible thing to begin with, and it gave me enough confidence to keep going, because I want to tell stories that I believe in. Now to be a part of this film is just a once in a lifetime thing. I’m just so glad that I persevered through my fears, because it is something that I love.”
Do you feel any pressure with this film? “It’s a responsibility, because we’re aware that there are a lot of young people coming to watch this film, and we have the responsibility to be the storytellers who are creating this story for them. J.K. Rowling has tapped into something very important, and very deep, on a sort of metaphysical level, and we just want to make sure that we embody that correctly. That’s a pressure, but it’s also a great challenge. You’ve got to be better than you are.”
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is released in cinemas on November 17. Click through for our interviews with co-stars, Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, and Dan Fogler.
