Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) has returned to London. He's released his book to, huge success making him extremely famous in certain circles.(He's not world famous. He's basically famous like a singer is huge in germany. He's the David Hasselhoff of wizards." says Katherine Waterston who plays Tina. ) But he's not happy.
"He just wants to get back to New York, to Tina," says Redmayne，“But his travel documents have been denied. The ministry keeps interrogating him and New York and why he was really there and what his true agenda was. He's not in a happy place. He's kind of fucked off.”
Tina meanwhile, is not in New York, but Paris where Newt will eventually follow. "She's been reinstated as an Auror, which is everything to her,"says Waterston, "She's trusting herself more after her instincts were proved right last time." Hence the journey to Paris, where she believes somebody very important is hiding. Most of the film will take place in Paris, in 1927.The reason the action has moved here (Paris) is because of one character, the one Tina is trying to find: Credence Barebone."
The last remnant of Credence fled to Paris in search of his real mother and answers. And having regenerated, he is now part of a circus.
“He landed himself in a familiar situation but this time he's gone all Twisted Sister on it. We're not gonna take it." Miller says. He talks like this a lot, in sudden caps. " The circus, he's back in an abusive, repressive environment, but this time he has a companion." The companion is the Maledictus(Claudia Kim), the circus' s central act and a woman who is cursed to eventually turn into a beasts. "They are both being abused and exploited and there's only so much he's going to tolerate."
The man tying all this together, who will nessecitate the trip to Hogwarts and who is after Credence for still secretive reason is the titular Grindelwald. Played by Johnny Depp, he starts the film in jail, having been captured for the crimes against the Wizarding community at the end of the last film. He swiftly breaks out and begins a campaign to unite the wizard world against the non-magical, who he considers inferior, believing he can gather enough support to make wizard and witches the dominant form of Humanity. And he might be right.
"Grindelwald as a villain is quite unlike Voldemort." says Yates, comparing the two big bads of Rowling's series. "Volemort was basically a thug. If you disagree with him, he'd just kill you on the spot. The scary thing about Grindelwald is that if you disagree with him, within 5 minutes he'll have you agreeing with him...He's incredibly charming and convincing. He's not a warrior but a seducer. He'll bend the truth until it fits what you want to hear and he can get you on side."
The return to Hogwarts is a reunion for fans, but so far it only includes some of the cast. Kravitz get to film there because Leta Lestrange was a remnant from Newt's Hogwarts past.The pair forged a romantic, though possibly not reciprocal, relationship at school, where they were both outcasts. He, because he was an oddball who only wanted to be friends with animals. She, because she was part of a family with a pretty dark history. As a boy who always had an eye for anything misunderstood, Newt was drawn to a character who is neither hero nor villain. As Kravitz puts it "Leta is constantly drawn between the good and the bad, the light and the dark, trying to work out where she fits"
Leta was the first person Newt had feelings for and comes back into his life in a rather painful way: she's now engaged to his brother, Theseus.
"I don't know if anyone in this triangle really knows what's going on," says Kravitz, "Newt is not always good at making his feelings clear."
A couple of scenes we shot are very sensual moments between of him (Dumbledore) and the young Grindelwald."
This part of this huge narrative that Jo is creating doesn't focus on his sexuality but we're not airbrushing or hiding it. The story (of AD & GG romantic relationship) isn't there in this particular movie but it's clear in what you see..that he is gay.
Dumbledore is chosen by the British Ministry of Magic as the man to bring Grindelwald to justice, but he refuses to do it directly. Instead, for reasons we'll get to shortly, he persuades an old pupil, Newt, to do it for him. Law sees a direct comparison with Dumbledore's relationship with Harry Potter.
"Dumbledore has an overview of events that most don't and therefore can't tell everyone everything at a particular time," he says," He did the same with Harry really. He steered Harry until he realized he was being used, but in a way he knew there there were things he couldn't find out until it was right to find them out. It's the same here with Newt. Laws says the key to his understanding of their relationship came from a note by the author. "Jo told me that in some ways Dumbledore thinks of himself as a beasts because things he's done in the past," he says, " and he knows that therefore Newt [as a beast-lover] will forgive him."
Redmayne is very careful in discussing why Dumbledore sents Newt after Grindelwald, beyond him being his favorite ex-pupil. "I don't want to give away what Dumbledore's relationship with the first film," he says, "but at the start we see that he maybe had some influence on what went on in the first film."
"No, I did not get to go to Hogwarts," says Redmayne, all but stomping off and slamming the door to his room. "Technically I film at Hogwarts, there's a shot where we come to the aquaduct[outside the school], but that was really standing in a massive green curtain." When asked if she made it to school ground, Katherine Waterston simply makes a"Harrump" face. She did not make it into school ground.
