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Cursed Child is set to start preview performances tomorrow, and in the midst of J.K. Rowling, director John Tiffany and writer Jack Thorne preparing for their opening day, The Guardian spoke to them about their two years of collaboration on the project.

Commenting on the ‘warmth and ease’ of the relationship between the three creators, writer Sarah Crompton says that the ‘friendship and ease between them bodes well for the collaboration that has sustained them for more than two years’.

We are reminded that this is the only interview the trio will give before the opening of the play. Jo recently tweeted a photo of a badge saying ‘#KeepTheSecrets’, which is the running message of the play’s promotion. In a recent backstage glimpse of the play (which you can watch here), the door to the rehearsals room bore a sign saying ‘Keep Calm and Keep the Secrets’.

Jo also tweeted a video today, asking all seeing the preview performances and beyond to keep the secrets of the play under wraps, so not to ruin the story for those unable to see the play or those attending slightly later dates:

Potter fans have always had each other’s backs. Today I’m asking you to #KeepTheSecrets of #CursedChildhttps://t.co/0Vbl3zwN6b

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2016

On keeping the secrets:

“I’ve been through this many times,” says Rowling. “And I hope we get there without any major spoilers, purely because people will have an amazing experience if they don’t know what’s coming.

“Generally speaking, Harry Potter fans are a community, they have each other’s backs, and they want to have that mystery and the sense of surprise. So we’re hopeful. But it won’t be the absolute end of the world. We’re not going to be throwing tantrums about it but we hope for the audience’s sake that we can get there.”

Two weeks ago, The Guardian’s Sarah Crompton met with the trio, and Rowling understandably hadn’t been sleeping much:

“I’ve been awake since 4am … We were in the theatre last night and I saw a scene that’s very close to my heart, in costume, on the set And it was quite overwhelming” 

Director John Tiffany is clearly no stranger to Jo’s amazement with the play:

“Jo has been around for a lot of the process,” Tiffany chips in. “A lot,” she agrees. “But last night was the first time I had been into the theatre and seen everything so fully realised. And it was… extraordinary.”

“We did a fist bump, didn’t we?” says Tiffany, smiling.

“Well, I tried to do a fist bump with you,” Rowling shoots back. “And you tried to shake it. So that wasn’t our coolest moment. But in fairness it was dark…” “And I am not known for my first bumps,” says the director. “Nor am I, really,” adds Rowling. “I just felt the moment demanded one.”

Talking about their nerves, Jo – the 4am riser – feels she could take a lot from Tiffany’s relenting composure. He says that his unshaken nerves were unexpected:

“If you had asked me a year ago how I’d be feeling today, I think I’d probably have said I would be crumbling biscuits in the corner. But I feel remarkably sane.”

“You are so calm,” Rowling interjects. “I am less calm.”

The magic started in a meeting between J.K. Rowling and the play’s now-producer, Sonia Friedman – after speculating the idea and bringing in Tiffany and Thorne, Rowling was completely on board:

“You can probably imagine I have been asked to do something else with Harry Potter five times a week ever since the series ended. Sonia just wanted to explore a theatrical production and I knew her by reputation obviously and thought I would really like to meet her and hear what she had to say.”

On Tiffany and Thorne’s involvement:

“That’s the reason this happened because I thought I will never have the opportunity to work with such great people again,”

Of course, Jack Thorne is a self-proclaimed ‘total Potterhead':

“I still consider myself a Potterhead and I hope the Potterheads don’t hate me so much after this that I am never allowed to be one again.”

Yet Tiffany was unaware of this when he invited Jack to become writer of the play:

“He asked me when we met at the tube station on the way to The South Bank Show awards,” remembers Thorne. “So glamorous,” laughs Tiffany. “And so appropriate, the tube station,” adds Rowling mysteriously. Thorne continues: “And he said, ‘What do you think about it?’ And I went a bit nuts in the street. Only because I’m so incredibly shy, nobody would have seen or realised I was going nuts.”

In an amazing turn of events, Jo Rowling and John Tiffany revealed that they actually met informally years before. Jo was a single mother, writing The Philosopher’s Stone in Edinburgh Cafes, completely unaware of the phenomenon it would become:

One of her favourite haunts was the Traverse theatre, where Tiffany was assistant director. “It was one of the first places in Edinburgh you could have a cappuccino,” remembers Tiffany. “I was there meeting actors and writers a lot, and I remember seeing a woman writing, with a pram at her side. We got to saying hello and I remember once Jo said, ‘Do you mind if I’m here…’”

“Because I hadn’t bought a lot of coffee,” she explains, before Tiffany adds: “Then a year or so later I realised who it had been. And she didn’t come to the Traverse any more.”

Jo says her and Jack Thorne are similar in many ways, making the bond between the three a lot easier to work with. They’re serious about the play, yet seemingly lighthearted, calm and honest in their approach to working with one another. Rowling seems to have completely entrusted her story to the two creators:

“Jack and I are similar in many ways,” says Rowling. “We’re both, notwithstanding how chirpy we are being right now, quite introverted people who are very happy alone in a room, and there are many parallels in our working practices and I felt like he was one of my tribe.”

“And we bonded over the haircut,” he adds, before asking her permission to tell the following story. “We were talking about the way people don’t realise quite how horrible age 10 is. That was the moment I realised it was possible I could never have friends. Other people would have friends and I never would. And I was talking about buying a coat: I bought the same coat as Matt Cox, who was a considerably cooler kid in the year and I had to wear it to school every day because my mum had bought it for me and it was the only coat I was going to get. He wore it a lot better and everyone thought I was copying him.”

He still shudders at the memory. Then Rowling adds, quickly: “And I had exactly the same experience. I had the same feather cut at 10 as Susan Hook. I went into school and everyone thought you are trying to be Susan Hook, you pathetic human being. We had exactly the same experience of being deeply uncool. And that’s what haunts you.”

Tiffany and Thorne understand the power of stories to impact people in complex and important ways, and clearly know the role that Harry Potter has had on so many people’s lives:

“When you’re growing up it’s very easy to feel lonely and insecure,” says Tiffany. “And what Jo managed to capture, I think, was a world which made those people feel less lonely.”

Rowling explains why she took on the project, and trusted Jack with the writing:

“I never set out to build a big community, but I don’t think there is a writer alive who wouldn’t want to have that many people react to their work,” she says. “That’s what happened. People came inside the world with me.

This is why [Jack] is the right man for the job, because he just gets it. That’s pitch perfect. The big reason why people loved Potter was that it felt like it could be. That sense that there is more to the world. Just on the other side. Even within touching distance. There’s more. It is the promise of another world and it doesn’t have to be a magical world but to a lonely child or an insecure person or anyone who feels different or isolated, the idea of having a place where you do belong is everything.”

“From the moment he produced the first outline, I thought bingo, that’s it.

On whether she ever considered writing the play herself:

“I am not so arrogant that I think when you’ve got an absolutely top-class playwright offering to do it that I’m going to say, ‘Well, I’ve never done it before but I’ll do it.’ It’s a question of knowing the limits of your own competence. I was reasonably involved in the Potter scripts. I’m more familiar with that world. I felt a degree of confidence writing a screenplay but I had supreme confidence that Jack was going to write the play that I was going to love and he has. So you can’t ask fairer than that.”

Later she comments on stage writing being a ‘revelation’ to her:

“It is a totally new language to me,” she says. “So watching Jack and what he can do on the page and his understanding on what will then translate on to stage has been such a revelation to me. I know novels and I know movies but this is a different world entirely. Jack has access to a paintbox that I don’t have because I don’t understand the medium.”

Thorne smiles. “To be honest, ever since I wrote Let the Right One In, I’d write something like, ‘They run through a forest and then are strung up on a tree and brutally murdered’. I’d just write it on a page and make John do it. And he does” 

The world of Harry Potter seemed silent to us for a long time – the play has returned the magic to us all in a new form, and Fantastic Beasts is introducing us to new elements in the world of magic that we’ve not encountered before. Rowling says that the stories never left her, even whilst she worked on The Casual Vacancy and Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike novels:

“It was 17 years and just because I’ve stopped on the page doesn’t mean my imagination stopped,” she says. “It’s like running a very long race. You can’t just stop dead at the finishing line. I had some material and some ideas and themes, and we three [she nods at Tiffany and Thorne] made a story.”

“But I carry that world around in my head all the time,” she acknowledges. “I am never going to hate that world. I love that world. But there are other worlds I want to live in too. To be perfectly honest, I just feel if I enjoy it, I’ll do it – and if I don’t, I won’t.”

“I always said never say never, and the reason I said that was truthfully that I did have this residue in my head in both directions – in Fantastic Beasts…, which is going back, and in this play, which is going forwards. So I still had this material in my head.

“It’s been amazing because there are roots over there and shoots over here, so it is keeping it very consistent and doing it all at the same time. We are sharing a lot between the worlds.”

The medium chosen for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child intrigued us all – when we heard there would be an ‘eighth story’ many expected another book, some thought it would be a film – many were confused when the scriptbook was announced – it’s a method of storytelling that’s new to us all, but theatre has captured the imaginations of creators for centuries, so perhaps it is only fitting that one of the greatest stories of this century moves to the stage. Rowling explains the reasoning behind the process:

“I kept being asked whether I would make a musical and I don’t like musicals,” she says, grimacing. “Theatre, on the other hand, I love. I find it a seductive world – there is nothing like seeing an actor perform live. But I had never had anyone approach me or propose anything that excited me like this.

“I think that, as a theatrical experience, as a play, it will be unlike anything people have seen before. And once people have had this theatrical experience, they will understand why this was the perfect medium for the story.”

The play is an art form unlike any other, yet in this day and age it seems to be neglected – Rowling herself admits to never having considered its appeal before. Jack Thorne and John Tiffany are trying to bring it back with J.K. Rowling, in style:

“The phrase John hates more than any other is ‘I should go to the theatre more often’ because it contains the idea that going to the theatre is an obligation.” “Like eating your vegetables,” Rowling chips in. “Or going to church,” adds Tiffany. “And that,” continues Thorne, as if in three-part harmony, “is the death of theatre. This is an opportunity, I guess, to get people who don’t feel they should go to the theatre to go to the theatre, and then discover that they want to go to the theatre.”

John Tiffany and Jack Thorne also unpack the reasoning behind Cursed Child being in two parts (as two separate plays):

“You would have had no space for character,” says Thorne. “It would just have been plot, plot, plot.”

Tiffany explains: ”Where film can eat up story, theatre needs space and breath. Once we thought of doing it in two parts, it felt naughty to begin with, but we felt we didn’t want to short change the story. We were very nervous up until the moment when the audience started to buy tickets, and the response was overwhelmingly fantastic, because the fear was that people would think we were just exploiting this. But it wasn’t that in any way, shape or form.” Rowling adds: “We had space to do what we were talking about doing.”

We’ve all seen the unsettling underbelly of Potter fandom rear its head in response to the casting of the Potter trio in Cursed Child – the casting of Noma Dumezweni as Hermione in particular sparked an enraged response.

Some claimed that this casting was ‘against canon’, it was against the films, it was against the book covers, it was against descriptions of Hermione (as having ‘very brown’ skin in Chapter 4 of Prisoner of Azkaban, with her infamous brown ‘bushy’ hair), it was – apparently – just wrong. 

Perhaps these remarks did not come from a place of racism, or at least were not intended to come from such shallow places. Perhaps any move away from Emma Watson portraying Hermione would have been met with anger, perhaps people can’t understand that one medium of storytelling does not define another.

Whatever the case, J.K. Rowling commented on the response with the truth: Noma plays Hermione Granger well and – in the author’s opinion – fits the character perfectly:

“With my experience of social media, I thought that idiots were going to idiot,” she says. “But what can you say? That’s the way the world is. Noma was chosen because she was the best actress for the job. When John told me he’d cast her, I said, ‘Oh, that’s fabulous’ because I’d seen her in a workshop and she was fabulous.”

Unknown to Tiffany, when he made his casting call, there had in fact been a “black Hermione” theory around in Potterworld for years. Yet the strength of reaction surprised him. “I am not as Twitter familiar as Jo and Jack, so I hadn’t encountered its dark side, which is just awful,” he says. “The anonymity breeds horrors so after a while I stopped reading it. But what shocked me was the way people couldn’t visualise a non-white person as the hero of a story. It’s therefore brilliant that this has happened.”

Rowling settles the issue with a firm affirmation of Hermione’s state as a fictional character who can be interpreted in a variety of manners:

 “I had a bunch of racists telling me that because Hermione ‘turned white’ – that is, lost colour from her face after a shock – that she must be a white woman, which I have a great deal of difficulty with. But I decided not to get too agitated about it and simply state quite firmly that Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm.”

The play will be ‘as purely as theatrical as possible’, according to Tiffany:

“Not a bombastic spectacle that makes people sit back,” he says. “It’s hopefully something that pulls you in. It is absurdly ambitious theatrically but it’s also about the audience and the imagination, which is exactly what a novelist does as well.”

Read the full Guardian interview here!

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts 1 and 2 start previewing tomorrow, June 7th, with the official opening of the play taking place on July 30th (alongside the release of the Cursed Child special rehearsal edition scriptbook). Forty low-cost tickets for performances will be released each week every Friday at 1pm – find out more at the play’s website here!

Furthermore, if you’re interested in attending Cursed Child Midnight book release parties on July 30th, find out more about GeekyCon’s exclusive event in Orlando here, and Barnes & Noble’s nationwide events here!

A graduate of London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, 26-year-old Cherrelle Skeete’s appearance on the cast breakdown for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has raised many questions, mainly due to The Voice reporting that she has ‘a leading role’ in the play. Could Cursed Child have found its Rose Weasley?

The Birmingham-born actress first appeared on the West End in The Lion King in 2012, and in the Olivier-nominated Amen Corner at the National Theatre a year later. Her other theatre appearances can be found here.

Skeete made her TV debut in the BBC series Call the Midwife, and starred in the BBC1 drama Ordinary Lies. She also appeared as Dee Dee in Danny and the Human Zoo, which also starred Evanna Lynch!

According to The Voice, Skeete ran the Paris half-marathon for Children With Cancer, has worked with the Lozells-based Lighthouse Project, which aims to raise awareness of child sexual exploitation.

In January, she spoke at Birmingham Town Hall on her concerns about the increases in shootings in Birmingham, as part of an annual tribute to Martin Luther King Jr, saying:

“This generation out there now needs to be healthy in heart and mind so we can change what is going on out there.

“We need a new generation of young people who can rise up and be anything they want to be – even if it doesn’t yet exist.”

Born in 2006, Rose Weasley should be 11 years old in 2017, when ‘Nineteen Years Later’ should technically be set, meaning she’ll be starting Hogwarts alongside Albus Serverus and Scorpius. This has raised questions about the probability of 26 year old Cherrelle Skeete playing the daughter of Hermione and Ron.

Anthony Boyle was announced as Scorpius Malfoy last month, and at 21 years old, proves that it is certainly not out of the question for Skeete to be portraying Rose Weasley.

She is certainly an amazingly talented actress, and we look forward to seeing if the rumours were true!

Read more about the actress here, and find her Twitter here.

Cursed Child is opening for previews in late May 2016, and for official opening performances in July 2016 at London’s Palace Theatre – bookings are being taken until May 2017!

Producer David Heyman received his just recognition at the Producers Guild Awards over the weekend.  Gary Oldman presented him with the David O. Selznick Achievement Award, saying, “I’ve never seen him settle for second-best,” according to Deadline‘s account of the event. Director Alfonso Cuaron called the award “very well deserved,” and Heyman accepted humbly, “This is an extraordinary honor, all the more so because it’s given to me by my peers and the PGA who really understand what it is I do and what a crazy calling we have as producers….it’s the greatest job in the world. I wouldn’t change it for the world.” PGA released a video of David Heyman’s acceptance speech on YouTube, and can be seen below:

But how did Heyman find Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone before most people had even heard of J.K. Rowling?  In an extensive interview for Produced By, the bi-monthly publication of the Producers Guild of America, Heyman answered this and more questions about his impressive career in film-making– revealing the true story of how the beloved Harry Potter films began– and his amazing orchestration of it all.

After being laid off from work with a major studio, Heyman opened a small office in London and decided to focus on books being published in Britain.  Heyman told Produced By,

“I set out to be a bridge between the U.S. and U.K. and decided to make books a central part of my business. One, I’m a voracious reader. Two, books had probably the best ratio of development to film at the time. At the time, the British books weren’t so aggressively pursued, so I thought I could distinguish myself.”

According to David Heyman, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was almost missed by his London office. Talking about how it all started Heyman said:

‘We had three shelves for incoming manuscripts and screenplays: priority, medium priority and low priority. Tanya Seghatchian, my very bright development executive, read an article in a trade publication about a book that hadn’t yet been published. She called the agent. The book came in and sat firmly on the low priority shelf for a couple of weeks before Nisha, my secretary, who only read material from that bottom shelf, took it home. At our Monday morning I asked, “Anybody read anything good?” And Nisha replied, “Yeah, I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” I said, “Hmm, not sure about that title. What’s it about?” “It’s about a young boy who goes to wizard school,” she replied. My interest was piqued.‘

With that, the Harry Potter film producer became one of J.K. Rowling’s first true fans. Heyman described his experience to Produced By, saying:

‘I couldn’t put it down and there began my Potter odyssey… I thought if I was lucky, it might be my Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I had no idea that it would become what it became. What I did know was that I connected with it. It made me laugh. It moved me. I related to Harry and the characters at Hogwarts. We all, in our own way, feel like outsiders. And no matter who we are, no matter how successful, no matter how happily married we are or what good friends we have, there are times where we feel alone. At least I do. And I felt that story was something that people could connect with. It was about something: being true to yourself. It was about loyalty and friendship and fighting prejudice and so much more.‘

After Warner optioned the film, screenwriter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling really hit it off, thanks to Heyman’s introduction. Heyman talked of how the two writers bonded, saying:

‘As Kloves was writing the films, the books became wildly successful. All of a sudden they were No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 on the New York Times bestseller list. Now there’s all this pressure as he’s trying to finish the script. At the same time, Jo, who had written the first two or three novels essentially without any expectations, now had all this expectation. And she was struggling as she had written herself into a little bit of a hole on Goblet of Fire but had a firm publication date! They really bonded through that shared experience and challenges.‘

Once director Chris Columbus joined the project, production designer Stuart Craig was the film’s first hire.  Then, the team scoured Britain for young actors to play the three leading roles.  They felt confident in their choices for Ron and Hermione but opened the search to the U.S. and Australia before finding just the right person to play Harry. Heyman told the legendary casting story to Produced by, saying:

‘One evening, Kloves and I went to the theater and seated in the audience, I noticed this boy with big round blue eyes. He seemed an old soul in a young body. And then this voice called, “David, great to see you.” Sitting next to the boy was his father, an agent I knew called Alan Radcliffe. The play started but I paid little attention to what was going on up on stage. I kept on turning around and looking at this boy. When the play finished, I went to find Alan and his son, but they’d gone. So the following morning I called ICM and asked if Alan would allow Daniel to visit the studio to meet Chris. Alan said, “Why don’t you meet him first, and then we can decide.” So Dan, his mum and I went out for a cup of tea and we spent two hours chatting. Dan had this incredible energy. He was so curious and intelligent—a curiosity and intelligence that have helped make him the actor he is today.‘

The team had a list of accomplished adult actors that they wanted, and they all accepted because the children in their lives loved the books.  The Wizarding World was established. David Heyman remembered how it all unfolded, saying:

‘We made the first two [Harry Potter films] back-to-back, we were prepping the second as we were posting the first. Chris did a brilliant job. I wouldn’t be sitting here today having a conversation with you [at Produced By] were it not for Chris. He cast our three leads and so many others, chose Stuart and many of our department heads and helped create the film world and an atmosphere and culture in front of and behind the camera that lasted till the end. And he directed two beautiful films.‘

But that was just the beginning.  David Heyman then explains how director Alfonso Cuaron and others joined the franchise that became a family.  The focus, however; was always J.K. Rowling’s storytelling. David Heyman talked of the consistency of J.K. Rowling’s voice shining through each film despite differing directors:

‘One of the things I’m proudest of in the Potter series is that in each film a director’s vision shines through. Jo Rowling’s voice is front and center, clearly, but each director channeled that voice and has made their films their own. Without that voice, a film is a blancmange and I am not a fan of blancmanges. A director with a vision is essential, even, or maybe especially within a franchise. Having said that, we never approached Harry Potter as a franchise. We were simply trying to make each film the best it could be!‘

This only skims the surface of the story.  To read more about the birth of the Harry Potter films and to learn about other great projects David Heyman has done, see the cover story for the December/January Produced By, here.

In an interview with MTV promoting his role in the new series of Ripper Street (available on Amazon Instant Video in the UK), Matthew Lewis – we assume jokingly – teased at making a cameo in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, following a visit to the set of the film earlier this week:

‘In terms of a cameo, maybe.

Isn’t this set years before? Isn’t Neville like, minus seventy?’

‘I know what he’s up to, because Jo told me. I don’t know if he’s going to be in the play, but in terms of the world, he’s a teacher at Hogwarts teaching his beloved Herbology. Professor Longbottom’

He said that he was very excited to see Fantastic Beasts, especially as David Heyman and David Yates are leading its Production and Directing teams.

On the process of filming the Harry Potter series, and on questions of him returning to work on any future Potter projects he said:

‘I loved it. It was an important part of my life, but after ten years, I’m not sure how much more I can really do with it … As an actor, we love becoming different people – finding that person to begin with is so much fun, that process, and as much as you love taking a beloved character places,  it’s kind of like when you first go on a date with a girl. That excitement, that buzz of first getting to know each other … after ten years that’s not necessarily there anymore, and fortunately as actors we don’t have to be monogamous with our roles – we can do other roles and find that buzz again’

Matt says he has enjoyed filming ‘wildly different’ characters from Neville, and is loving the process of working on Ripper Street. Make sure you catch it on Amazon Instant Video, and watch a trailer here.

Watch the full interview with MTV here and below!

Pottermore have released details of an exclusive interview with David Yates on set of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Ezra Miller, Collin Farrell, explosions and (predictably) a lot of rain make an appearance on set, as Yates talks about directing the first of at least three Fantastic Beasts films after directing the last four Harry Potter movies:

‘I’m so excited about this. J.K. Rowling was just inspired to set this movie in 1926 with a completely new set of characters’ he says. ‘I spent seven years doing four of her Harry Potter films so I was desperate to read this script, but also nervous, you know. 

‘It’s a beautiful script; it’s really fun. It’s fresh. She’s got such a gift for creating adorable characters. These ones are special, they’re really moving and funny. You see bits of yourself in them, or you see people you know.’

After watching the trailer on Tuesday, we’re definitely excited to get to know these new characters – with humour, mystery and a fresh new (…old?) era of wizard culture to explore, Fantastic Beasts is certainly gearing up to be a great story!

On Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne):

‘Newt is just fascinating. Probably anyone who’s ever done some sort of geeky thing will relate to him… And filmmaking is a geeky profession,’ he says. ‘Newt’s obsessed with beasts and cataloguing facts about beasts.’

Yates tells the mysterious Pottermore Correspondent that he was ‘obsessed with lenses and cameras’ when he was growing up, and said he ‘really get[s] that aspect of someone who’s truly obsessed with something.’

Lucky us Potterheads have just the right amount of experience with slightly geeky obsessions – Newt sounds right up our alley!

We also get told a little more about Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston):

‘Oh she’s so adorable because she’s sort of so career-obsessed. A lot of us who work really hard can sometimes relate to that. Jacob is everyman, or everywoman, he’s pure and I like that. Queenie’s glamourous and somehow worldly but innocent. They’re so great.’

And finally, Yates addresses how he built the cast around Redmayne’s character:

‘It was like putting a rock band together. We saw so many people. We got Eddie, he was our anchor and I knew once we’d got him, we had to build the world around him. The other characters in this world had to react to him, they had to have a chemical reaction with Eddie. So we went to New York and saw some really fine actors, a lot of them, over two or three days, one after the other in the same room, all of them with Eddie. ‘

‘Eddie has done certain scenes from this movie so many times with so many different actors. When he was with Katherine, there was just something. It was amazing and I just thought, it’s got to be Katherine. It’s got to be. Then with Dan… Eddie and Dan are like Laurel and Hardy, so it had to be him. It’s funny, how they just clicked.’

Read the full interview here, and watch the new Fantastic Beasts trailer here!

On July 18th, RadioTimes reported that an estimated 14,000 girls aged between eight and 12 stayed in line for hours to audition for the role of Modesty. One of our own Leaky editors was there to report on the event. Now Warner Bros. has revealed to BBC Newsround the results of the Open Casting for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them which took place on July 18th.

The name of the 10-year-old actress who has been cast to play a character named Modesty is Faith Wood-Balgrove. WB has described Modesty as “a haunted young girl with an inner strength and stillness. She has an ability to see deep into people and understand them.”

Faith Wood-Balgrove is set to join the star-studded cast of Fantastic Beasts later this month. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set to release in November 2016.

Filming is to begin later this month. Please join us here at Leaky & warmly welcome Faith to the expanding Harry Potter family!

Today, thousands of girls aged 8-12 years flocked to the Excel Centre in London to audition for the role of ‘Modesty’ in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, due for release in November 2016.

J.K. Rowling also tweeted about her excitement to find the girl perfect girl to play the ‘haunted young girl with an inner strength and stillness’:

Various Potter stars also gave their best wishes to the girls in the queue, including Evanna Lynch, who posted an encouraging message on her Facebook earlier this week, urging people to audition:

Here’s a first-hand breakdown of the day:

9:00am: Word around the HUGE queue was that people started to gather at around 5am, so by the time 9:00am hit (the time the queues opened), 4000 people were already raring to go.

10:00am-12:30pm: Temperatures were running high, and patience among the young hopefuls running thin. Security guards passed round water, suncream and umbrellas, with water tanks, an ice cream van and a snack bar nearer the front of the outside portion of the queue.

News reporters and various camera crew members were circling the crowds from all angles, and interviewing those in line – as in this video from BBC’s Newsround, and this video from Sky News. Others tweeted their photos of the queues:

13:00pm: 9:00am arrivals reached the section (inside and air-conditioned!) portion of the queue. An absolute blessing. Casting Information Forms were handed out and filled in.

14:30pm-15:00pm: After around six hours of queueing, 9:00am arrivals were finally taken in for their audition, which went as follows:

Staff took groups of ten children aside at a time, telling them not to be nervous. Girls were then broken into smaller groups to have their photos taken.

For their head-shots, girls were lined up in front of whiteboard and told what face to pull (e.g: straight face, smiley face, ‘eyes shut’ face). A casting crew member then took the groups aside to stand in a circle and take it in turns to tell the others their name, age and birthday. They were then asked a few questions (e.g: ‘If you had one superpower, what would it be?’)

Children then handed in their Casting Information Forms, and received a certificate to say they had taken part.

The audition was a 30-50 minute process on average. RadioTimes said that an estimated 14,000 children queued up outside the Excel Exhibition Centre.

We are all very excited at The Leaky Cauldron to see who’s going to be cast as Modesty. Join us in wishing good luck to those who auditioned!

Warner Bros. Pictures and the makers of the Harry Potter films have sent over the full details for the open casting call set to take place in London on July 18, 2015, for the role of “Modesty” in the new Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film. Open casting calls have been successful before, bringing us Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) and Katie Leung (Cho Chang), so if you are a young actress, read on!

Wb is looking for:

• A young girl between ages 8-12 for the role of “Modesty”
• Modesty is “a haunted young girl with an inner strength and stillness. She has an ability to see deep into people and understand them.”

Those who fit the criteria (below) should apply to meet a member of the casting team and have a photo taken at the following place and time:

Saturday 18 July 2015
Excel Centre Hall
Royal Victoria Dock
1 Western Gateway
London E16 1XL

The line (queue) will open at 9am and firmly close at 1pm. Lining up overnight is strictly prohibited. Wear comfortable shoes and dress appropriately for the weather on the day. Even if it’s sunny, it may be advisable to bring a sweater for air conditioned areas.

Application Criteria/ Restrictions.

• All girls between the ages of 8-12yrs may apply.
• All applicants must be available for the shooting dates between August 2015 – January 2016.
• All applicants must be eligible to work in the UK
• All applicants must be accompanied by one parent or legal guardian over the age of 18 yrs.
• Additional guests cannot be admitted into the venue.
• Unaccompanied minors will not be permitted to make an application.
• Travel expenses will not be reimbursed.

The ExCel Centre has sent the following travel recommendations:

By Tube:
The Jubilee Line is recommended as the quickest route to ExCeL London and the ICC. Alight at Canning Town and change onto a Beckton-bound DLR train, for the quick 2-stop journey to Custom House for ExCeL (West) or Prince Regent for ExCeL (East) and ICC London.

Travelling By Rail
As the Capital of the United Kingdom, London is connected by rail to all major cities in Great Britain
London’s main rail terminuses are Charing Cross, Euston, Kings Cross/ St Pancras International, Liverpool Street, London Bridge, Marylebone, Moorgate, Paddington, Victoria and Waterloo.

Travel by Road
When driving to ExCeL London follow signs for Royal Docks, City Airport and ExCeL. There is easy access from the M25, M11, A406 and A13. For a map showing major local roads
Please contact the AA for information on planning your journey and 24-hour live traffic reports, by calling on +44 (0) 906 888 4322.

For a map of ExCeL London’s location please visit www.streetmap.co.uk and search for ExCeL London by postcode – E16 1XL.

For Sat Nav purposes, we recommend using postcode – E16 1DR.

ExCeL London offers on-site car parking for 3,700 cars.

Parking Information
All onsite parking is pay and display, with the exception of the Royal Victoria multi-storey car park, which is located at the west end of the site. Parking in the Royal Victoria multi-storey car park can be paid for at one of the three pay points located within the car park at the end of your visit.(the machines are located on level two and level zero and all machines accept both cash and credit card).
Click here to download our parking map
Parking across our onsite locations is £15 for up to 24 hours.
This tariff is applicable for the following locations – Royal Victoria multi-storey car park, Undercroft parking (Orange and Purple) and the East Car Park.
Please note the multi-storey and undercroft areas only permit vehicles up to a maximum of 1.9 metres high.

Pay and Display Machines
Please use the correct change as no change will be given or notes returned.
For refund enquiries please contact [email protected]
Motorcycles can be parked free of charge in the designated motorcycle parking area.
We also operate an additional tariff for our lorry and coach park areas and these are charged as follows (costs based on 24 hour durations);

Transit Vans up to 3.5 T / Mini bus
£20.00

Coach
£30.00

Vehicles over above 3.5 T / Lorry
£35.00

As ExCeL London is a green venue all pay and display machines will be found on stand-by. However, the machine will activate as soon as you insert your card or cash.
ExCeL London offers 158 disabled parking spaces, located within close proximity of the venue. Spaces are available to blue badge holders only and badges must be displayed at all times. Parking for disabled visitors is charged at the normal rate.

For enquiries please call+44 (0)20 7069 4568 (within office hours).

Travel by River and Cable Car
The Emirates Air Line (Cable Car) connecting ExCeL London and the O2 opened in summer 2012, making it possible to travel by Thames Clipper between central London and the O2 and then by Cable Car across the Thames to ExCeL London
Ticket prices:
Cash Single Fare: £4.40
Oyster Fare: £3.30

MBNA Thames Clippers (Connections by River):
MBNA Thames Clippers is the leading commuter boat service on the River Thames. Departures are available from all major piers, including The O2, Greenwich, Canary Wharf, Tower, London Bridge, Embankment and Waterloo, every 20 minutes during peak hours. Click here for the timetable.

Ticket prices:
Adult Single: £6.80
Oyster Card £6.12
Travelcard (1/3 off): £4.50

From the O2 visitors can use the Emirates Air-Line Cable Car for the quick 5-minute connection to ExCeL London.

Cycling to ExCeL
ExCeL London has 60 cycle racks in total.
6 cycle racks are located at the West entrance taxi drop off point just underneath the DLR walkway.
54 cycle racks are located next to the East Entrance underneath the stairway connecting Level 0 to Level 1.
There is no charge to use the cycle racks.

For a map of ExCeL London’s location please visit www.streetmap.co.uk and search for ExCeL London by postcode – E16 1XL.

If you are using satellite navigation, we recommend using postcode – E16 1DR.

Barclays Cycle Superhighways
ExCeL London is located very close to the Superhighway route CS3 which runs from Barking to Tower Gateway. For more information on the route please visit this page.

Puppicasso got typecast when he was a puppy Pupp.

Flashback to his first Halloween:

He played the Tramp from “Lady and the Tramp” in the Haute Dogs Howloween parade in Long Beach, CA.

He's a Pupp, and I love him.

His costume was simple, but he pulled it off with panache…

Tramp Seeks Lady...

...to share spaghetti.

Flashback to the present day, when Puppi’s mom actually got to take a walk outside during her lunch hour at work.

The stroll ended up detouring in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where I saw–

Toto.

One of the most beloved pup stars of all time, Dorothy’s companion.

It got me to thinking that Toto had been typecast his whole life as a Kansas Spitfire with a heart of gold.  Although I guess, is not such a bad bit of typecasting, like John Wayne was always the hero.  There are worse things you can be than saving-the-day-well-liked-go-to-kid.

Puppicasso however, prides himself on taking his career path to the next level, even if that level is still sniffing the ground.

He refuses to be the “Pupptag Repair Dog” or “Mr. Whippupple” or even always being referred to as “The Tramp” –  despite the fact that he loves the movie, and reminds me often that he helped me write a great live version of the classic story  “Lady and the Tramp Redux” (hint, hint, still shopping it around town, Puppicasso would like to get into the WGA soon, just for health benefits of course)

He just feels adamantly that typecasting is putting him into an unfair classification of skills that only call into his abilities the roles and job labels that he has had in the past.  But with that protest I still try to measure exactly what his skill set is or at least is length in inches…

0 Comments on Puppicasso Predictions #32 as of 1/1/1900

Super big welcomes to author Eric Griffith. His book Beta Test just came out in print and will be available as an ebook next month!

When is writing a book like directing a movie? Sure, you pick the angles and make the special effects, but I’m talking about the important part—characterization. So I’d say it’s when you pick your “actors.”

I sat down years ago to start writing what would be my second completed novel, and I believed I was in good shape. I had an idea that some might consider overdone, but I thought I had a nice twist on it. Part of that twist came from the fact that I had a plot almost fully laid out—your basic “quest to save the world” story, but transplanted out of medieval fantasy to the present day.

I even had characters. They had names and jobs and wants and desires (at least most of them) and even descriptions.

But I still had no idea who they were and what they were like. I couldn’t quite picture their faces or personalities. And woe is it when I start writing and I don’t know the actors in the roles.

That’s how I have to think of my characters—actors who’ve been cast in the roles they were meant to play. It’s like knowing that Tom Selleck could have been Indiana Jones. He still can be, in your head. Or on the page. (Disclaimer: Ugh, really, Tom Selleck? Go Team Harrison!)

In the case of this book—called BETA TEST, which is out on Dec. 15 from Hadley Rille Books—my two main characters would be the opposite of most heroes and heroines. They’re not muscled or chiseled or in good shape, to be honest. On top of that, they would also be physical opposites of each other. And that’s when I realized I already knew the actors to play them. For my real-life friends, Dan and Polly, are that to a tee. Dan is a man-mountain. Polly defines petite. They couldn’t possibly fit together, but one look at them and you know they fit better than any two people should.

Plus, they’re both complete hams. Dan even ended up on the cover of the book, and now he wants “modeling residuals.” Uh…I’ll get right on that.

Dan and Polly fit the look so well I gave the main characters the not far-off names of Sam and Molly. I liked that extra little nudge, which told me every time I wrote a line of dialogue I must remember how the “actors” would deliver it. It’s like they were giving me direction.

Of course, that’s not how it works in the long run. As time wore on, Sam became his own person, who just happened to look like Dan (but will probably be played in the movie by Jorge Garcia…sorry Dan). Molly had to take a lot of different shapes in the book, quite literally, since at one point she’s a guy. Her way of talking, however, stayed the same to my ear, no matter how deep her voice got.

The rest of the characters were cast with a plethora of actors (in my head). Jack Black plays one character; a young Steve Buscemi is another. It’s the author’s prerogative to put his friends together with the Hollywood elite, or the least known character actors. Use your family, your friends, your favorite person in the background scene of “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.” Whatever works. And when the characters get unruly and stop doing what you expect, you can threaten them with instant recasting to get your way. Sometimes.

About the Author

Eric Griffith lives in Ithaca, New York, with his girlfriend and anywhere from three to five dogs, depending on the day. He writes features for PCMag.com but refuses to do your tech support.

Inside Movies got interviewed The Hunger Games director Gary Ross. He explained why he cast Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen–a choice criticized by fans yesterday.

Ross explained: “This is a girl who needs to incite a revolution. We can’t have an insubstantial person play her, and we can’t have someone who’s too young to play this. Suzanne [Collins] was incredibly adamant about this. Far from being too old, she was very concerned that we would cast someone who was too young. In Suzanne’s mind, and in mine, Katniss is not a young girl. It’s important for her to be a young woman. She’s a maternal figure in her family.”

Ross said he appreciated fans’ passion, but he also needed to satisfy Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins. Now Ross must find actors to play Peeta Mellark, Gale Hawthorne, Prim Everdeen, and other characters.

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