Newt & Tina: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Eddie Redmayne: What was kind of wonderful about what J.K. Rowling's written is that the way in which they met, they're almost antagonists to begin with. It's definitely not love at first sight.
Katherine Waterston: There's something. I mean, he catches my eye right away and I'm instantly suspicious of him.
Eddie Redmayne: Suspicion. Attraction.
Katherine Waterston: It's a fine line. Yeah, so, I mean, obviously that's an indication of my amazing instincts as an Auror, but also I think you do it with attraction. You notice right away something about someone, but they are not aware of it, but it's nice that the audience gets to be able to watch it from that perspective, knowing that these people will...
Katherine Waterston: Itâs wonderful how, throughout the film, they reveal little bits of their past and certainly reveal a great deal of their character to each other. As things are when you first meet someone, you get a very general sense of who they are. My sense of who Newt is at the beginning is that heâs dangerous and untrustworthy, and kind of cute, too. Part of what I love about Tina is she's flawed and often doesn't achieve what she is pursuing or things don't work out for her [like] she hopes. But she is good at her job and the moment she sees Newt she knows something is going on, even though she doesn't exactly know what. And that, to me, was the first clue that she's not a total disaster.
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Katherine Waterstob: One of my favourite messages of the film: that there's so much more to people than initially meets the eye. I think it's one of the great discoveries in the film, at least for Tina as she gets to know Newt. At the beginning, he's not very engaged; he's prickly; he really wishes she'd probably fuzz off. She thinks he's got an interest in a ridiculous subject, and one that's dangerous and a nuisance. But it's through getting to know him better that she comes to understand what these creatures really mean and what they can be. And through seeing his relationship with the creatures, she comes to see there's so much more to him than just the prickly, standoffish and disinterested outsider she meets at the beginning of the film.
Eddie Redmayne: Certainly at the beginning of the film when he meets Katherine's character, there's a great antagonism between them, and they're both quite sort of knotty characters. We sort of know that ultimately those two in the Potter lore get together, and there's this sort of central build of these two people who are outsiders finding each other.
Eddie Redmayne: One of the things I loved about this script when I first read it is, I think JK Rowling had always seen it as telling a larger story, but the film is it's own thing. Actually the relationships that you see arrive in the film, they stand together as one sort of whole piece. But What I love is that the relationship starts kind of...
Katherine Waterston: Combative.
Eddie Redmayne: Yeah, it's not love at first sight put it that way. Maybe there's a bit chemistry at first sight, but it's quite combative. But what was lovely was to play a slow build, to be able to play this kind of â these characters are thrown into a world, this quartet together. They're all outsiders in some ways, and yet they have really heroic qualities within them. So it's kind of lovely for us to not rush that and be able to play it slow.
Katherine Waterston: You know that eventually you know these two people end up together. So you can see and look for when they start to notice each other, you know what I mean? Because you're in on it in a way that I think is really fun. I feel like there's a lot in this movie of us kind of like, oh, that tragic stuff where you look at someone and they're not looking at you, and then you look away and then they look at you. So there's like all of that sort of stuff going on.
Katherine Waterston: I think the biggest distinction is actually the way witches and wizards interact with the muggles, or as we call them "No-Majs" in America, because we're forbidden to engage with them at all. We were persecuted during the very real Salem Witch Trials and went into hiding. There's just a lot more secrecy aroud witchcraft in America. When Newt shows up, he's very casual about things we are very, very strict about.
Eddie Redmayne: I feel like Newt doesn't really care about rules that much anyway.
Katherine Waterston: No, he doesnt. It's quite shocking to me.
Eddie Redmayne: It really irks her.Katherine Waterston: It stresses me out a bit, but also I find him really charming and engaging. So you know...
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Katherine Waterston: With Newt and his case, the main problem is that it's a lot easier for witches and wizards to hide from the No-Maj world than to hide magical creatures, especially ones that are on the loose in the community. So that's the number one threat. It would be disatrous. They plough things over, they break things, they could harm people. For most of the film, Tina is just imagining the worst-case scenario. In Amercian, as it's established in the film, we've been taught that magical creatures is a bad thing. We should not have them at all, not in America and certainly not on the loose. She's almost panicked to get them back. In her interaction with the beasts as the're tracked down and recovered, Tina galves a better appreciation for Newt. So when push comes to shove, she again abandons the rule book and helps someone in trouble.
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David Yates: She had done something really bad. Like Newt, she is a wee bit of an outsider.'
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Katherine Waterston: Her relationship with Newt? I think if you're peculiar, it's nice to meet other peculiar people. Whether it's romantic or not, it's lonely when you feel like you're the only peculiar person out there. I think Newt and Tina are both kinda offbeat and have a lot of qualities that have often been attributed to geeks. I don't really think of them as geeks, just a little bit unusual.
Katherine Waterson: Thereâs pieces of it that are very true to life, the cultural clash, we use different words, we have different ways of engaging, sheâs an New Yorker, sheâs kind of loud and aggressive.
Eddie Redmayne: Heâs an introvert. He hates people.
Katherine Waterston: Yeah, and polite. Maybe not polite. Thereâs a different way of interacting that you certainly notice, Iike I notice goning from New York, as I'm from New York, to England to shoot the movie and sometimes there's a real...
Eddie Redmayn: Even in press, there are things. Sometimes I'll say a word and Katherine will be like, "What does that mean?" Or I'll say the other way around.Katherine Waterston: I'll have to translate it or the other way. Yeah, so, there was so much that I think that JK Rowling noticed about the differences and the cultures that she used in the story. But then at the same time, there are these beautiful parallels between Newt and Tina, and I think once they get to know each other better, they notice the similarities, and the connection there builds. But at the beginning, I think all they see is differences.
Katherine Waterston: I think she felt more like a fish put of water in the first film, and I think maybe she and Newt recognised the similarity in one another. They both were in a situation where things weren't quite familiar or right for them.
Katherine Waterston: Actually this is a point of connection between Newt and Tina is that they both had an aspect of their lives that really makes sense to them that in which they are highly functional, and then these other aspects of their lives are not so much. She also struggles with communication. She was orphaned as a child and had to take on a lot of responsibility at home, and as a result, didn't really socialise and develop like the average teenager might. So there are these aspects of her that are a bit stunted, but like all JK Rowling characters, utimately, whatever the guards are, whatever the barriers are, she has this huge heart.
Katherine Waterston: What was great at the beginning, you see this slight clash of cultures. He's the outsider in New York. It's her town. She says things he doesn't understand, like No-Maj. He doesn't know what she's talking about. And they started off having this combative relationship. And I think they probably think that they are quite different from one another, but as they get to know each other, they see that there's a lot of points of connection that they had actually quite a lot in common, that they are both really passionate about their work, that they are both a little bit awkward in social interactions. That part of their lives has been sort of neglected and underdeveloped. And they both have a tenderness to them and big-heartedness to them that is quite covered by the way that they present themselves to the world. So it's fun to find the moment where they recognise each other. Â
Eddie Redmayne: They're both really passionate people. Newt is absolutely, he's sort of slightly awkward amongst sort of human beings and wizards, but with his creatures he's like hugely passionate, and similarly Tina is pretty formidable at what she does. She's fallen from fame at the beginning of the film, but she is deeply, deeply sort of obssessed with her work in a brilliant way.
Katherine Waterston: Yeah, actually in our world, we both kind of come alive, and in the rest of the world, we haven't quite figure out how to be complete people. Also what's so nice about that is that there's so much room for us, I think, as actors, for us to grow. I think these characters will, when push comes to shove, I'm imagining in the future films, be challenged to rise more to occasions and stuff and I think it'll be really fun to, you know, it's more interesting and exciting to see someone who doesn't know if they're gonna able to pull something off and attempted and than someone who's like, "That's right and no problem. I got this." There's no tension there. So I think there'll be lots of fun. Feats ahead.
Katherine Waterston: She has good instincts. She knows she has a lot of potential, but can't seem to convince people of it. I think Newt sees that potential in her. That's a lot of what falling in love is, you feel someone else recognizing what you have to offer. As the relationship evolves, she sees whatâs motivating him and why he is the way he is. They are both very passionate about what they do. They are both a little stunted, not very good at expressing themselves. And then you start to see the reason why they have become that way. Heâs very isolated in his work. Sheâs become the parent to her sister, Queenie, because they lost their parents when they were young. So theyâre these two people who really havenât had much time to have a good time. In contrast to Jacob and Queenie who are much freer, and itâs in that contrast that you see how trapped they are. The moments where a little bit of who they really are gets to come out, itâs really exciting. And as the film goes on, that starts to happen more and more.
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Katherine Waterston: I think what you see there are two characters who are confronted with their own social limitations. That the areas in their lives where they really thrive. If heâs with his animals, heâs confident and he knows just what to do. And although we donât really see her thriving at work in this film, at work â thatâs the place where the world makes sense to her. Itâs what sheâs poured all of her energy into in her life. In a sense, by mistake theyâve missed out on developing the parts of themselves that would allow them to just simply enjoy a dinner. I think in that moment theyâre both confronted with their own inadequacies and their shyness, so theyâre recognizing something similar in one another, but also totally too limited to do anything about the fact that theyâre realizing that theyâre similar. Then itâs almost made more embarrassing by the fact that the two people right next to them have no difficulty in this area. But, I think that the whole quartet tells a story of oddballs coming together and feel understood by one another. The same thing is happening for both couples in that moment. The ones that are having an easy time talking are finding that they have things in common and a connection, and the ones that are struggling are also finding a connection in that moment.
Katherine Waterston: I think they really kind of are actually kindred spirits. They recognize a similarity in the other. He has an area of his life that makes sense to him when he's with his creatures, and that's the safe place in the world he understands. In the broader world, it's challenging in many ways. Human interactions are challenging. Tina, her work makes sense to her. That's the world in which she thrives, and beyond that interpersonal relationships are quite difficult. You see it when Queenie and Jacob are at the dinner table in the first one. I always thought that scene told so much about these two. Just with the little quick glances and stuff, they were observing a great deal about the trap they are both in a little bit in human interactions, while these other two are so freely engaging with each other, but that's a comfort for them, and I also think I really don't have to act. It's a wonderful gift. Tina loves his relationship to the creatures and I, Katherine, I think it's so beautiful to watch Eddie work with them in the way he does. I feel like that's something that's very easy to perform, but that I think makes her feel like, "This is a really, really special wizard."
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Katherine Waterston: Part of what causes the wonderful connection to happen in the first film is that they recognise that similarity in each other. She also has a world that makes sense to her, and the greater world is a challenge and those personal relationships, she just doesn't... I think a little bit differently. She just maybe hasn't allowed herself that. There hasn't been time for that part in her life, because she's had a responsibility to care for her sister and focus on her work. But also that's the kind of thing people say when they're like justifying being single or something.
Katherine Waterston: When I first read the script, I really loved her journey that at the beginning she's really uneducated about fantastical beasts and maybe even a little bigoted and judgemental of what she doesn't fully understand and through the process of being exposed to them and seeing what they are through Eddie's eyes, she comes to a greater understanding and I loved that journey and that growth.
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Katherine Waterston: And I love Tina because â and I think we can all relate to this. Sheâs very complicated. She has that aspect where you can feel incredibly confident in yourself, but also be filled with self-doubt and insecurity. Sheâs got all this hope for herself, but every time she tries to do something right, it goes wrong. So sheâs wondering if she is as hopeless as other people perceive her to be. Sheâs living with that question when Eddieâs character comes along. He lets her try magic and it galvanises her. It can be lonely being an oddball until you find other oddballs. Their friendship is not a mere byproduct of the extreme set of circumstances they go through together; it is their common experience as outsiders that draws them to one another.
Katherine Waterston: Tina is a very serious, hard-working, also awkward, damaged person. They share some traits. Both are very passionate about their work and thrive in that enviroment, but are little stunted developmentally in other ways. What I loved about Tina was that she loves her work. She's so proud of it and has a sense that she has great potential as a witch, as an Auror, but also at the same exact time, harbours a real anxiety and fear that she won't reach her potential, that she isn't good enough, and so I love that kind of internal struggle she has. It is when she too bonds together with these other three... It's kind of strength in numbers thing. They, especially Newt, I think, starts to encourage her to performe magic more than she's been doing recently because she's been demoted at work and she starts to kind of get her groove back because of that support.
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Katherine Waterston: It just occurred to me now that both Newt and Tina are kind of rebels. He got kicked of Hogwarts at the beginning of the film. She is been demoted at work, so she's like a career gal without a career when you first meet her and is sort of struggling between both, feeling courageous, outgoing and confident and also vulnerable and insecure, so she's a bit of jumble. It is through joining together with, well, particulary Newt, but with the main four, or the other three I should say, that she kind of gets her groove back.
Katherine Waterston: Yeah, I mean it's one of the lovely things that I think Newt and Tina have in common is that both are really passionate about their work and their interests. It's where they kind of come alive. So for her, to have the place where she's most comfortable taken from her is very uncomfortable for her. So she wants to be a great Auror, but she also really wants to get back in the swing of things, because that's where she feels the best. She's really striving to kind of undo the damage she's done, but she has so much heart, and sometimes there are situations that compelled her to maybe bend or break the rules, even though all she wants is to get back in good graces at work. So she's kind of got this internal struggle going on there. But what's also amazing in the couse of the film is that because... I think that Newt sees her potential and kind of encourages her to get back into doing some pretty badass witchcraft.
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Eddie Redmayne: With Katherine's character, it is sort of a slow-build connection. these two people, who are outsiders yet passionate people, begins to glimpse things in one another.
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Eddie Redmayne: It was one of the things that I loved â the idiosyncrasies within these characters, as you say. Tina was someone that presents as incredibly strong, and yet she has the fragility as well. And similarly, Newt has a seeming awkwardness and shyness, and a complete incapacity to relate to other people. One gets a sense that that stems from some sort of damage. It's also because he is someone who has grown up with these creatures, so he has great empathy for them. And he's his own person. J.K. Rowling writes about these characters who all appear to be misunderstood or outsiders in some way, but when they find each other, they bring qualities out in each other. Both Newt and Tina have a certain pre-judgmental notion, and yet when they really look and listen, I feel that they see each other.
Eddie Redmayne: He does have a vulnerability but it's not like he's striving for a connection with humans. At the beginning of the film, he's very happy in himself. He's seemingly completely content in his skin, but it's only when he realises that he can have a connection, that he sort of begins to fall for Tina. He connects with Tina and it's very slow burn but it's been wonderful to play. They start as antagonists, finding each other deeply frustrating, but by the end there's a kind of sense of something.
Katherine Waterston: I donât think itâs too theatrical a notion that Newt and Tina could bond so quickly, because a lot happens. When youâre thrown together with someone in a high-stakes environment, you tend to feel quite close to them even after a little bit of time. Sometimes you know someone for three days and itâs amazing and you think, âHey I actually know you. You donât, ladies! You donât know them yet, but you can feel like you do.
Katherine Waterston: As Tina gets to know Newt, she sees more of him when she sees him interact with the animals because at first she does see him as uncomfortabe and guarded, but she's not seeing him interacting with the creatures, and I think it's part of where the love story begins at least for her is when she sees him the side that he kind of hides from other humans and it's very moving to her.Â
Katherine Waterston: She really has a journey there to understand so much that she's never explored before. She took her job very seriously and she has great pride in being a part of MACUSA, but there's also a bigger world out there. There might be something a little bit narrow-minded about herâher perspective in the beginning of the film. This is why diversity is a good thing and understanding other cultures is an important thing. As she gets to know Eddie's character, she also comes to understand there's lots of different kinds of points of view about things that she had sort of been a little bit more rigid about... rigid-minded about before.
Katherine Waterston: My character in the beginning of the film, has been raised and taught to fear the other in the case of the fantastic beasts. And through education and through understanding and being exposed to itâŚEddie Redmayne: And empathy.Katherine Waterston: Yeah, and being presented with a different perspective on it, she comes to understand that there's no reason for her to fear what she's been taught to fear. So those messages have a solution in them, too, which I think is fucking useful.
Katherine Waterston: In another interview I was talking about Tina's journey: she has a fear of the other, she's been educated to fear these magical creatures, and through exposure to them and exposure to a person who has a different perspective on them, her perspective changes. There's hope for growth so long as we open ourselves up to it.
Eddie Redmayne: At the beginning, I think Newt has sort of no interest in Jacob. He's just about getting the creatures back. But there's one moment early on when Newt takes him down into the case and Newt doesn't take many people down, if anyone down to the case and he shows Jacob the Occamy, the little and he watches the way. Because these creatures are hated by the wizarding world. Everyone hates these creatures. He watches the way that Jacob looks at this creature and he suddenly sees someone who sees what he sees. And I think that's the first moment that Newt kind of falls a bit for Jacob and I love that progression. And similarly with Tina, when she comes down later and begins to understand these creatures for what they are and I think he can put his defense down a bit.
David Yates: There's another scene where Alison and Katherine, in the case, sing the Ilvermorny song, the school song. I asked Alison would she write it, and she wrote this beautiful Ilvermorny school song. And they sing it together and the two boys, Jacob and Newt, they sit there and they watch. And as the girls perform this song, this ode to Ilvermorny, they slowly fall in love.
Eddie Redmayne: In order to surprise him, Newt has to appear entirely relaxed and unpredictable, but the Demiguise knows him; he already has a sense of what heâs going to do. So Newt encourages Tina to just be casual. That itâs going to be up to her to catch the Demiguise, because he knows less about her. I think that not only is Newt trying to find the Demiguise, but subconsciously heâs beginning to enjoy the proximity with Tina.
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Katherine Waterston: Perhaps my favorite day on set was a scene with Tina and Newt on a dock. We were on location in an enormous hanger originally used to build zeppelins. Itâs the biggest single storey building Iâve ever seen in my life, and had this incredible energy to it. We only shot a few takes of that scene, but that was one of my best memories. It was just one of those days that felt electric.
Katherine Waterston: I loved the scene between us at the end of the movie. Because weâve been doing all these action and stunts and working with the magical creatures, and this was just a very simple scene, two actors just communicating together, and we shot it with two cameras as well. So it was like sometimes you shoot one side and then the other, but we were really in the moment together. So what you see in the movie isnât cut together between like many hours of shooting. Itâs kind of more in real time. That felt magical.
Eddie Redmayne: What do I enjoy most about the work? It's the tiny moments when things feel real and they happen very, very rarely. You're very lucky if it you have one in an entire job and it happened for me on this job when, in the last scene between Tina and Newt, when they're leaving to go away, she wishes him and says, "Good luck on the book." And then she says the title of the book, 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.' Newt can't believe that someone's seen him, and in that moment, whenever Katherine said that, I got goosebumps. I was like got the tingles, "Wow!" Like being seen. And It's a weird moment. You can't really quite describe it and that's why you never talk about it in acting, but it's like something feels true for a minute or a second, and you don't feel like you're putting it on. It's just a natural reaction that happens to you.
David Yates: In the course of the story Tina and Newt have this unrequited, quite tender, quite funny journey together.
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Katherine Waterston: I suppose in the beginning of the first film, she's a survivor and she sort of developed a kind of hardness in order to get by in the world and I think when she encounters Newt, it does soften her in a way.
Eddie Redmayne: One of the things I love about Newt is that he's completely his own person. He's learned to be content with that - or he thinks he's content with it. In the last movie, he connected with the [principal] trio, and particularly with Tina, who saw elements in him which other people had never seen. Probably one of the only other people in his life who had seen that was Dumbledore.
Eddie Redmayne: In the last movie, getting to meet Queenie and Jacob, and particularly Tina, like his heart has been opened. So his world has always been his creatures and his case, and through meeting Tina, his heart's kind of exploded, and so I would say he is out for being much more open
Eddie Redmayne: What is it that he doesn't like about Tina? I think Tina is an extraordinary character. She is formidable, she is vulnerable, she is incredibly caring, she sort of looked after her sister in this extraordinary way despite a tricky upbringing. Even though she's created in the first film this sort of exoskeleton through damage, he can see into her and I think it's just a magnetic connection between them.
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