Wands are an integral part of wizards’ daily lives in the Harry Potter Universe, and anyone who has seen the films or read the books knows that wand lore plays a key role in the story, so it makes sense that if you’re going to portray one of the wizarding world’s most beloved and iconic wizards, you’d need to learn to wield a wand, right?
Jude Law, who plays a younger version of Albus Dumbledore in Warner Bros.’s “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” however, didn’t receive the traditional wand schooling some of the other actors on the film did.
“Yeah, I think some things changed between the first and second film. It turns out Jude didn’t get wand school, but the rest of us I think did,” Katherine Waterston, who plays Tina Goldstein, said during a Q&A at a fan screening event TheWrap attended at Universal Studios Hollywood on Saturday. A couple other cast members also confessed to missing out on wand school.
“I like to think it’s because we didn’t need it,” joked Law.
He may have skipped wand school, but that doesn’t mean Law didn’t put in some swish and flick practice on his own to prepare.
“I found out from Jude just now that when he got the part he was on holiday with his family and he just went and picked up a twig and just spent the entire holiday walking around with a twig,” said castmate Eddie Redmayne, who plays the film’s lead Newt Scamander.
“It was good practice,” Law said. “So Eddie’s right — I did carry around this stick for most of my summer holiday practicing and then I only got to say one spell in the whole of the film.”
Not all of the new cast members got out of going to wand school. Callum Turner, who plays Redmayne’s brother Theseus Scamander in the film, joked that he had to spend seven months learning how to properly hold and use his wand.
As Turner explained that his biggest takeaway was not going over the top, Redmayne interrupted to tease him.
“I don’t want to throw my brother under a bus here, but he broke his wand on the first test,” Redmayne told the crowd.
As all Harry Potter fans know, the wand chooses the wizard, but new cast member Zoe Kravitz — who plays the mysterious Leta Lestrange — bemoaned not being able to choose her wand for the film. She also said the worst part, however, is when they took her wand away at the end of filming.
“I was really, really nervous. It was kind of like the first day at school, you know? But everyone was so welcoming,” Kravitz said of joining the cast. “The best moment is when they hand you your wand, and the worst moment is when they take it away at the end.”
“Oh, yeah you can keep one for $75,000,” joked Credence Barebone actor Ezra Miller.