They needed an actor to play a younger version of Albus Dumbledore.
It sounds as if the folks making 2018’s “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” — the second Wizarding World adventure set decades before author J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” saga — didn’t exactly have to beg Jude Law to take on the role of the powerful wizard.
“I mean, it was kind of a no-brainer: ‘Would you like to play Albus Dumbledore?’ ‘Yes, I would,’” Law says during a virtual news conference for the follow-up to “Grindelwald,” “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” which lands in U.S. theaters this week. “I felt like I’d been in preparation, subconsciously, from the minute I started reading the (“Potter”) books to my children.
“Gosh, there’s just so much in the character to mine and to investigate as an actor — that’s before you even get into this extraordinary world of magic.”
“The Secrets of Dumbledore,” co-written by Rowling, continues the story launched with 2016’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” It features series mainstays Eddie Redmayne, as magizoologist Newt Scamander; Dan Fogler, as baker and muggle Jacob Kowalski; Alison Sudol, as mindreader Queenie Goldstein; and Ezra Miller, as Credence Barebone, a powerful but disturbed wizard who was revealed in “Grindelwald” to be a member of the Dumbledore family.
(The movie also features Katherine Waterson, an auror from America and Newt’s love interest, but only briefly. The actress did not take part in the news conference.)
It sees Mads Mikkelsen in the role of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, the actor taking over from the departed Johnny Depp. Grindelwald continues to build support in the magical world for a war against the muggles, whom he finds quite distasteful.
Early on in the movie, viewers will begin to learn more about these “Secrets of Dumbledore,” starting with just how intertwined his past is with Grindelwald’s.
“I always imagined that being Dumbledore was always quite a lonely place, being that he was brilliant and outstanding at a very young age — to the point that he probably felt somewhat isolated,” Law says. “Then, suddenly, he meets someone who is as brilliant and matches him and inspires him, and that kind of connection is very, very, very powerful — more so when you’re at a young age.
“I think it’s important, then, to also remember what their time together would have been like — incredibly dynamic, incredibly cherished and special,” he continues. “And then this awful moment (arrives) where you realize you’re on a different path; you’re actually moving away from each other. But that doesn’t necessarily take away from the explosive kernel, the firework that went off initially.”
The Wizarding World last year celebrated its 20th anniversary — Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (titled “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in the U.S.) was released in 2001 — and “Dumbledore” director David Yates now has been at the helm of the last seven films, dating to 2007’s “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”
Yates says he values the ever-expanding collective of talented folks that has grown out of the continuing endeavor.
“When you make a movie, it’s a huge logistical enterprise, and it’s tough creatively, logistically, technically,” Yates says. “So going into that experience with people you respect and admire but who also can take the strain of it with some real dignity and some real humor is essential. And (those are) the qualities I’ve found in many of the people I’ve worked with in front of the camera and behind the camera.”
There’s a real sense of family, he says.
“We use that word quite a bit, but it’s important because that doesn’t (always) happen in our industry because it’s a tough business.”
Yates is then asked why, in his view, the movies are so enduring.
“They’ve become a safe place to go for lots of people,” he says. “They celebrate certain values — loyalty, love, friendship, empowering the outsider/the person you always underestimate — things that resonate for a lot of people in the real world, as they do in this magical space. It’s a beautiful thing to be part of stories that create a safe space for some people when they go to the movie theater to watch them. I’m very proud of that.”
“The Secrets of Dumbledore” reveals the magical sides to previously unseen locations, including a forest in China and Germany’s Ministry of Magic.
Says producer Tim Lewis, “One of the exciting things — certainly for the audience and certainly for us filmmakers — is we get to open up the magical world and go to completely new areas.”
However, he acknowledged the movie also returns fans to some favorite spots, none more beloved than the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Its future headmaster, Dumbledore is a professor there at the moment, as is Jessica Williams’ Charms Professor Eulalie “Lally” Hicks, a newcomer to the franchise.
“Oh yeah, I got chills,” she says of being on the Hogwarts set. “I started reading those books in the third grade, and a lot of those books hadn’t come out yet.”
She found being in the Great Hall especially meaningful.
“And then seeing the kids in their robes, their wizarding uniforms … I wanted to cry,” she says. “You know the sensation of wanting to squeeze something cute? I wanted to just squeeze a lot of the kids and just shake them.
“But then I realized I was an actor, and it’s a liability, so I didn’t squeeze the kids. But the sensation was there,” Williams adds. “It was totally a pinch-me moment, and it was really surreal.”
Returning to the subject of his portrayal of Dumbledore, Law is asked whether he needed to rewatch the “Harry Potter” movies to match up the portrayals of the character as an older wizard, first by Richard Harris and then by Michael Gambon.
“The major lure was to fill in gaps and go back and explore themes and sides of his character that were hinted at in the books and suggested in the films,” he says. “Yeah, any excuse to go back and rewatch — I was probably caught rewatching them over and over saying, ‘I’m doing research! I’m studying!’
“Honestly,” he continues, “It was kind of important, we felt, to free ourselves from the Dumbledore we knew because he wasn’t quite that man yet. But, at the same time, there were definite qualities that both Richard Harris and Michael Gambon gave the character that I wanted to steal, I suppose — the humor and the relish of life and impish behavior. Both of them have a sort of gravitas, a soulfulness, that I thought was really beautiful and complicated.”
Speaking of “complicated” things, Yates uses that word, with a laugh, to describe the plot of “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” and he says it took the filmmakers a while put all the pieces together.
“So with this story in particular, we wanted it not only to be emotional, but we wanted it to be enjoyable and for it to be a real treat — and for it to lean into the values of some of the earlier ‘Potter’ films that had whimsy and charm, humor and humanity.”
To that last quality, Yates recalls a private screening a few weeks earlier in which a single youth was among the select few in attendance.
“Everyone turned to him when the lights went out and said, ‘What do you think?’” Yates says. “And he looked at me, and he said, ‘I liked it. It’s really human.’ And I thought, ‘We’ll take that.’ We made a film with all this extraordinary stuff in it, and the one thing he takes away from it: ‘It’s really human.’ That’s a testament to the performances and the story and everything.”
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