#fbawtftinterview

“I went to a wildlife park,” he says, “and met people who care for animals and watched all the idiosyncrasies of both how the animals behave and how the people who look after them behave.”

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...

- Entertainment Weekly

Katherine Waterston: It’s 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 he’s 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.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Movie-Making News & The Case of Beasts: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

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.

- HMV

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.

- Entertainment Weekly

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 — 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.

- Entertainment Weekly

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...

- Entertainment Weekly Binge Dec 07 2016

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.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Movie-Making News

David Yates: She had done something really bad. Like Newt, she is a wee bit of an outsider.'

- Inside the Magic: The Making of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

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.

- Yahoo UK

Katherine Waterson: There’s pieces of it that are very true to life, the cultural clash, we use different words, we have different ways of engaging, she’s an New Yorker, she’s kind of loud and aggressive.

Eddie Redmayne: He’s an introvert. He hates people.

Katherine Waterston: Yeah, and polite. Maybe not polite. There’s 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.

- Netease

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.

- SFX Magazine

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.

- Kermodeandmayo

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.  

- Tencent

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.

- Entertainment Weekly

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 what’s 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. He’s very isolated in his work. She’s become the parent to her sister, Queenie, because they lost their parents when they were young. So they’re these two people who really haven’t had much time to have a good time. In contrast to Jacob and Queenie who are much freer, and it’s 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, it’s really exciting. And as the film goes on, that starts to happen more and more.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Movie-Making News & The Case of Beasts: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

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 he’s with his animals, he’s confident and he knows just what to do. And although we don’t really see her thriving at work in this film, at work – that’s the place where the world makes sense to her. It’s what she’s poured all of her energy into in her life. In a sense, by mistake they’ve missed out on developing the parts of themselves that would allow them to just simply enjoy a dinner. I think in that moment they’re both confronted with their own inadequacies and their shyness, so they’re recognizing something similar in one another, but also totally too limited to do anything about the fact that they’re realizing that they’re similar. Then it’s 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.

- Snitchseeker

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."

- FilmsNow Bloopers & Extras

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.

- Wizarding World

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.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Interview

Katherine Waterston: And I love Tina because – and I think we can all relate to this. She’s very complicated. She has that aspect where you can feel incredibly confident in yourself, but also be filled with self-doubt and insecurity. She’s got all this hope for herself, but every time she tries to do something right, it goes wrong. So she’s wondering if she is as hopeless as other people perceive her to be. She’s living with that question when Eddie’s 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.

- Hot Press

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.

- Filmsnow Movie Bloopers & Extras

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.

- MoviemaniacsDE

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.

- Entertainment Weekly Binge Dec 07 2016

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.

- Inside the Magic: The Making of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Eddie Redmayne: It was one of the things that I loved – 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.

- HMV

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.

- Yahoo UK

Katherine Waterston: I don’t think it’s too theatrical a notion that Newt and Tina could bond so quickly, because a lot happens. When you’re 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 it’s amazing and you think, “Hey I actually know you. You don’t, ladies! You don’t know them yet, but you can feel like you do.

- Wizarding World

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. 

- Adorocinema

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 her—her 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.

- KUTV

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 it…Eddie 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.

- Mugglenet

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.

- Leaky Cauldron

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.

- Star

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.

- Slashfilm

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 he’s going to do. So Newt encourages Tina to just be casual. That it’s 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 he’s beginning to enjoy the proximity with Tina.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Movie-Making News

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. It’s the biggest single storey building I’ve 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.

- Female First

Katherine Waterston: I loved the scene between us at the end of the movie. Because we’ve 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 isn’t cut together between like many hours of shooting. It’s kind of more in real time. That felt magical.

- Tencent

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.

- Snitchseeker

David Yates: In the course of the story Tina and Newt have this unrequited, quite tender, quite funny journey together.

- Inside the Magic: The Making of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

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.

- Cinemark Argentina

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.

- SFX Magazine

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

- iQIYI

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.

Tell us about your character, Newt Scamander. 

The Concept Art of Lethifold - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them BluRay: Creatures & Ben Kovar

(The layout of Lethifold in Newt's case)

Last question. Can you talk a little about some of the deleted scenes we might see on the DVD?

Yes. The scenes we cut out, there are two scenes, two of my favorite scenes in the whole movie that I cut out. When I watched them with Mark, we reviewed the DVD extras the other day, and I said to Mark [Day], my editor, I can't believe I've taken these out, I must be insane. But they feel right. When you see the movie, it's the right thing to do. But when you see them individually, we go, why did we take that out?

One is Jacob coming home from the bank and he's been refused the loan and Mildred, his girlfriend, is waiting for him. She runs up in the street to see him and she says, did you get the loan? And he says, no I didn't get the loan. And she takes her ring off and gives it back to him. And she says, I thought you were getting a bakery and leaves him. It's a really heartbreaking scene and Dan [Fogler]'s beautiful in it.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them:

JK Rowling: These sisters are orphans. They've really raised each other.

- A Look Behind the Magic

Alison Sudol: So you have two sisters who have raised each other and have a very deep bond.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Behind the Scenes

Alison Sudol: They grew up together and are very close. Their parents died when they were young, so they essentially had to raise each other. Each sister is the older sister and the younger sister in a different way as each has very distinct qualities that the other needs. They look after each other and complement each other beautifully. It's just how Katherine and I are together naturally.

- News24

Alison Sudol: But one thing that was very clear to us is that, because we lost our parents so young, we always took care of each other. And we acted very differently to the circumstances because we're very different people. Queenie is younger than Tina, so Tina took on more of the responsibility of the two of them and also because Queenie is an empath, essentially. She was also quite vulnerable. Tina also took it upon herself to be more protective. So I think that influenced everything that happened with their school days, but it's a very sweet thing to see that moment [Ilvermorny school song], as you said, because for us, the relationship as sisters in the movie is kind of just implicit; it's implied. You kind of just get the sense that these two are incredibly close, but you never really get to see that much of their shared history, and so it was just a moment for us to play with that as well.

- Mugglenet

Alison Sudol: It’s beautiful because they are so different. They both really compliment each other in really lovely ways. Tina’s very strong and very ambitious and hard-working and also very protective of Queenie, and Queenie really loves her and looks up to her, but also sort of looks after her heart, and they are both mature in different ways and they bring those things together to look after each other and they are each other’s whole family, which I think is such a beautiful thing, and you see it in little moments throughout the film, just little bond.  

- Douban

Katherine Waterston: Really, until these men come into their lives, Tina and Queenie are everything to one another— sisters, best friends, parental figures. They were forced, I think especially Tina, to grow up quickly because they lost their parents young, but despite that painful fate their dynamic is very youthful and sweet. As the older sister, Tina definitely feels Queenie is her responsibility and is very protective of her. Of course, Queenie, being a legilimens, can see that Tina is, beneath the surface, very vulnerable and in need of protection, too.

- Female First

Alison Sudol: think it's a really beautiful relationship. It's two sisters [who] have basically raised each other because their parents died when they were very young. So there's a mutual caring for each other. It's not like older sister-younger sister, because I think in some ways Tina is more grounded and an adult, but then Queenie has this deep empathy and such an unbelievable amount of perception about everybody but especially about Tina. So there's a real care and a warmth, and they occasionally are like [sisters] and bicker, but we didn't want it to be that kind of relationship because it's so much more about the love that they have for each other. And that's just present. It's not even trying to show it. It's just there.

- Mugglenet

Alison Sudol: Queenie is love. Queenie loves Tina with her whole heart and it's incredibly painful when people just see some idea of her that isn't true. They miss her humanity because the way that she looks.

- Mugglenet

Alison Sudol: 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.

- Filmink

Alison Sudol: It can make you feel quite lonely, to have something that differentiates you from people like that. Obviously, it deepens the connection between Tina and Queenie because she knows so much about her sister without having to ask. That helps her help Tina. But she also has to protect herself and be aware of how [being a Legilimens] affects her. Tina's the safest person for Queenie to be around.

- Snitchseeker

Alison Sudol: Yeah, I mean, I think she's quite powerful, and she hasn't really had the opportunity to stretch that muscle, really. It's not something that she ever even really talks about. You can tell because people don't know that she's reading their minds, so you know she's not well advertised as a Legilimens. And I don't think that she's ever really had the need to utilize it. I think it's like as a woman, I've noticed with myself and with my friends, there comes a moment in time where you suddenly really need to access your intuition. And once you start doing that and trusting your intuition, it gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And you realize that there may not be a limit on it if you continue to develop that. And I think it's the same with Queenie. I think that she and Tina have a particularly deep bond, and that love makes it grow exponentially, and who knows what she can actually do? Which is quite exciting.

- Mugglenet

Katherine Waterston: I have a sister and I found it so brilliant that JK Rowling gave one of us the ability to read minds. There’s something really bizarre about it, even if you’re aren’t twins it can be that sort of connection. I thought the legilimency aspect was a good metaphor for it.

- British Vogue

Alison Sudol: Tina and Queenie are each other's family. They are each other's everything. You want to give Tina a hug all the time and Tina seems like she needs a hug. Where Tina's wanting to be the best, Queenie just loves life. She's very playful and joyous. She doesn't have a shell. What I love about Queenie is that she sort of plays with magic. It's very easy for Queenie to just love Tina. There's the kind of love that nothing can change between them. That's a very beautiful thing. You don't need to prove how much you love somebody if you love them enough, and that's how I feel with Tina and Queenie.

JK Rowling: Queenie who's much more relaxed than Tina, but is someone who is underestimated constantly. She's a Legilimens. So the girl who's always looked at can see more deeply than anyone else. 

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them blu ray extras: The Goldstein Sisters

Dan Fogler: Katherine plays the darker side of the sisters. She's more cerebral, but also has this great vulnerability. Katherine's a fantastic actress and what she brings to the role is a very specific sensitivity, but also strength. Each one of them is trying to find themselves. They're all fish out of water; quirky misfits who form this little family. And each one has something that is beneficial to save the day.

- The Case of Beasts: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Alison Sudol: That was quite important to us that was there. There's not a lot of time that we have as sisters time. That's actually why Ilvermorny song scene was so nice because we actually got to be sisters. We decided early on that it was gonna be really important to have certain cues or certain things that we learned in our childhood, so you could just see that there is this relationship there. There are certain things that just happened naturally.

In the strudel scene, there's a moment when we talk to each other and I'm scolding her for making bad food choices, tiny bit. We tasted things at the same time. It's just those little moments, but it's really just like the undercurrent of sisterly love we just had to just lean into.

A lot of it was in the moment. There's this moment when we taste something at the same time. There's the way that we set the table. She was settting the table and I was cooking. That was like proper ballet. That was the first main scene that we shot. We had like "You do the forks and I do the apples. You do the this and I do the that." It's just the way two people, two siblings live together and make dinner every night. 

- Leaky Con

Alison Sudol: You have these two sisters who have raised each other and so we have a very deep bond. But it's an isolated and lonely life, and these two men come into our world and they're very, very different and exciting and intriguing and our lives are suddenly transformed within a night, being on the run and part of a gang. I think that's something we all want to do. We all want to be part of a gang.

- The Case of Beasts: Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Katherine Waterston: This is what's so amazing and kind of insane about working in film is that sometimes you just met the person and then you have to move around in a space together so you do it everyday. So we kind of scrambled to quickly figure out how they would prepare the room together. Whose chores are whose. So I was sort of setting the table with my wand and she was preparing the meal. We developed a little like superstitious kind of salt over the shoulder toss thing just to kind of give the audience a sense of their life together that is very insulated and private.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them On-Set Interview

Katherine Waterston: You sort of feel the relationship more than you see it. When we are preparing the meal, there's little banter that's very everyday and lived-in and comfortable. It is the kind what I would describe as actually sort of witchy way that sisters engage with one another. Having a sister myself and Jo has one too, it just feels very true. I really love how much they are the centre of each other's lives and take care of one another. The way that they relate to one another is very sweet, and the thing that makes them really close is something really really painful. I really thought it was an indication of Jo's skill and intelligence as a screenwriter to know that you don't always have to express the feeling on the line.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them blu ray extras: The Goldstein Sisters

Katherine Waterston: And I’m a bit more the father and she’s a bit more the mother. Queenie has a generous, maternal quality to her. She cooks beautiful, elaborate meals. And maybe, in their loneliness, they’ve fallen into that dynamic, where I’m trying to be the breadwinner, and she’s doing the ironing. On one level it’s a throwback relationship: they’re the mother and the father they lost. Then also, there are aspects to both of them that I think are underdeveloped, because they never really got to be kids. So, on another level, they’re like two kids in their bunk bed, and maybe part of the journey in the film is just bringing them to their actual place in the world.

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Movie-Making News: The Stories Behind the Magic

Katherine Waterston: She wants to be Sherlock Holmes, but she's Oliver Oyl. She's sort of klutzy and flailing and hasn't quite come into her own yet and feels sort of invisible. You know, men walk into lampost when her sister goes by, call her "Sir". So, I mean, I think there's just a real contrast there, but she's not jealous of her sister at all. They love each other so much. She hasn't really found her place. She hasn't had a chance to kind of blossom yet.

- Yahoo

Crimes of Grindelwald:

Alison Sudol: So already in last film you see she's kind of breaking the rules by coming back to Jacob and then this time around, you see that they've been in a relationship for a while. It's caused a huge rift with her sister and because she has this gift and she's been seeing into people's heads for so long and has never fallen in love with the way that she falls in love with Jacob, I think she's got a little bit of desperation not to lose that and because she's got the added thing of you can't have this, it pushes her to make perhaps not the wisest of choices, which we've all done in love. She just so deeply and desperately wants love and when Tina can't accept that and Tina's her only family, it means that everything is kind of on Jacob and so she's sort of going to have Jacob, whether Jacob likes it or not.

- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - Makers, Mysteries and Magic: Chapter 6

Alison Sudol: Well, I think in Queenie's case, because she doesn't have a family except Tina and when Jacob comes in, that's the family that she wants to make her own family with. I think that she so desparately wants to be normal and she is not normal. She isn't in contact with her gift at all and she has a gift of a very powerful wizard and she just wants to be kind of almost not her and I think that is a large hole in her that is able to be exploited, because she thinks that something is very special about her is not wanted. 

- Inside Warner

Alison Sudol: I mean, she wants love and family. She is an orphan and Tina was her only family, and then Jacob came into the picture, and Tina didn't prove of Jacob, so there became this sort of thing like, "OK, well, Jacob will be your only family." And then that's not allowed. So right then and there, that's quite complicated.

- Crimes of Grindelwald World Premiere in Paris

Alison Sudol: Ultimately, you have this young woman who desperately wants to have a family because she's an orphan, it's always been her and her sister, and then she falls in love and the man she falls in love with alienates her from her sister because her sister's a real rule-follower and they're not supposed to be together these two. So right there, the foundation of her family is ruptured. It's not solid anymore and she wants to solidify it so badly. And then she makes some decisions which maybe in hindsight are't necessarily the wisest, but she's just doing what she can, out of a lot of fear.

- Coupe De Main

Alison Sudol: Also the problem is that she's been protected by Tina their whole life. She's the younger sister, and Tina, as we know, is a pretty big rule follower, and so it's caused a rift between the two sisters as well. So, as she goes through this journey, just see what happens to someone that's been very protected their whole life, who suddenly is sort of not protected, and who has this gift that she's not really in a dialogue with as well, and what happens when you put those things together.

- SiriusXM

Alison Sudol: I feel like in some ways she’s too there and that’s part of the problem. She’s tapping into all human beings at all times and that’s a lot for one person to hold and everybody closest to her is always going, ‘Don’t read my mind.’ So she has a huge power and yet is made to feel like she’s nothing and that’s bad. That could make anyone feel crazy.

Jacob doesn’t come with her. It’s not so much about Jacob not coming with her to the dark side, it’s like, ‘Jacob, walk with me, we’re in this together.’ And she doesn’t have those two [Jacob and Tina], so who does she have? Newt’s kind of betrayed her — he called her out, it was embarrassing. What does she have?

- Entertainment Weekly

Alison Sudol: She had been incredibly sheltered by her sister, Tina, and for good reason, so she needed to be protected.

- Supanova

Alison Sudol: And she is very innocent. She is unprotected. She is heartbroken. She's been abandoned. I mean, think about where is Tina in all of this? Tina was the one who was looking out for her, and she wants change. The system that is currently in place is the system that is keeping her from being able to love the person she loves.

- Mugglenet

Alison Sudol: She was manipulated by somebody after having been rejected by her sister, who was like, "Where's Tina?" Jacob wasn't great, didn't handle that well and neither did Newt. So the people that she loved the most were not there for her when she's clearly vulnerable and clearly struggling.

- Brussels Comic-Con

Alison Sudol: I hope that when people watch this they remember that love is driving all of these things. For Queenie, the choices that she's making may seem out of character, but if you think about what she's been through — the fact that her sister isn't there for her when she needs her — I would hope that people stay with her as a character on her bumpy ride.

- Exclaim

Alison Sudol: The wizarding world, including her sister, let her down, limiting her ability to be who she was and to love who she loved.

- Secrets of Dumbledore Production Notes

Katherine Waterston: Really all of the drama between Tina and Queenie occurs between the first and second films, so you hear about it, you do not see it. So that was a big responsibility for Alison and I to bring this history that you don’t see play out in the film to the film, but the weight of that relationship and the fracturing of that relationship I felt I could carry with me throughout this whole story. It’s an extraordinary loss for Tina, and I think it kind of explores an important lesson about dealing with and confronting the troubled relationships in your life. If you assume that you can do it later, you may not have that chance, and I think that in a way, Tina, in trying desperately to save Credence, misses some opportunities to repair her relationship with Queenie before it’s too late. 

- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - Makers, Mysteries and Magic: Chapter 7

TINA: QUEENIE!

QUEENIE Disapparates.

TINA retaliates, throwing a curse at GRINDELWALD, but the circle of fire lashes out in ever more violent spears. GRINDELWALD conducts the flames as though leading an orchestra, the Elder Wand his baton, as the forks of fire strike at AURORS attempting to Disapparate or flee.

- Crimes of Grindelwald: The Original Sreenplay

Katherine Waterston: I was thinking when Callum was saying that the intentions may be very good, but you essentially can be speaking in different language, that he wants to protect his brother, Tina wants to protect Queenie, and Queenie simultaneously feels very unprotected in that situation, because protecting her is safety, but I'm not considering her dreams or her heart in that sense. JK Rowling's very good at exploring the shades of gray. It's not so simple. The simple version would be, "You've gotta follow the rules and I'm enforcing them because I love you." And Queenie would say, "Oh, that's so sweet of you. Thanks." But the world is not so simple, and I think as the series goes on, we are seeing that in all of the storylines. There isn't an easy answer. We all have to work it out for ourselves.

Callum Turner: Yeah. I guess also in hindsight, this is only when you realize what you've actually been doing. Right? Whether you've been overbearing or...

Katherine Waterston: Yeah and the cost of it. 

Alison Sudol: Yeah, the consequences.

Katherine Waterston: In this film, Tina does realize the consequences of not being more open to her sister's perspective.