When word broke that Johnny Depp would be appearing in the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them sequel, speculation immediately went rife into who the actor was going to play. You don’t simply cast an iconic actor such as Depp and then put him in a minor insignificant role and so it needed to be someone vital to the story. Many speculated that he would be taking on the role of Gellert Grindelwald, former friend/crush of Albus Dumbledore who reportedly will feature as a major character in the remaining four movies.
And it will seem now that those speculations have been proven correct, with David Yates, director of Fantastic Beasts and the last four Harry Potter films, officially making the announcement to The Leaky Cauldron:
The whole principal of casting the movie was go with the best actor. Go for the most inspired, interesting, right fit for that character. And as we approached Grindelwald we thought, ‘Who’s going to take this in an interesting direction?’ In this business, it’s a weird old business. You’re brilliant one week, people are saying odd things the next, you go up and down. But no one takes away your pure talent. Johnny Depp is a real artist. He’s created several characters who have really resonated in our popular culture. He’s a really brilliant, brilliant actor. We were excited about seeing what he would do with this guy, the character. He’s fearless; he’s imaginative; he’s ambitious. We thought he would do something fun and special. So we went for him, purely on that selfish basis. We don’t care if he’s famous or not famous. We just know he’s interesting
Depp is certainly an interesting actor who can no doubt bring something different and theatrical to the role. That Potter films have survived this long without big star attractions though might detract from the ensemble focus the films have previously had, but it does make sense to secure someone of Depp’s nature for the film. And he is already used to wearing hats, so putting on a wizard one isn’t much of a stretch. He is also used to wearing lots of makeup, which he may need to do as he may be a little old for the role if he’s supposed to be playing alongside a young Dumbledore. Considering my limited knowledge of Harry Potter history though, I could be wrong on that call.
But obviously another key question will be who is going to take on the role of the young Dumbledore to work alongside Depp for the role. We do know that they are actively searching for the role for the sequel when the story is meant to move back across the Atlantic to Europe, which Yates also confirmed:
We do go back to the U.K. in the second film as well–it’s U.K. and Paris. I’m not sure where Jo is setting the rest of the movies, but they’ll be European-centric. I think it will be difficult to ignore America, but the next one is predominately Europe.
With a major star such as Depp playing one half of the potential couple, it will be interesting to see if they look to cast another major star alongside Depp or go for a lesser known actor for the part.
Lastly, Yates also provided some details on the role Ezra Miller’s character Credence will be playing in the sequels:
Credence, we follow Credence further. He becomes quite pivotal actually, Credence is quite crucial
There is certainly still a lot of hype around the upcoming Potter film which is releasing here in a little over 2 weeks’ time. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is sounding exciting, which is good news for the studio and JK Rowling who have mapped out the story for all 5 movies already.
Last Updated: November 9, 2016
