By Sugandha Rawal
Los Angeles, Nov 16 (IANS) Alison Sudol was nervous about shooting with Johnny Depp, but her nervousness went out of the window when she met him on the sets of the “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”. The actress says he immediately put her at ease.
“I was really nervous going into it for many reasons — I didn’t know him, I didn’t work with him. He is quite a legendary actor. He immediately put me at ease,” Sudol said during a roundtable discussion here while promoting the Warner Bros Pictures project, which opened in India on November 16.
“He was very gentle with me. He was very kind after every take. He was generous and said lively things about my performance, which was great because I was very vulnerable — not in the whole movie but in some scenes,” she added.
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” explores the story of Gellert Grindelwald (Depp), showing his power to influence people to embrace the dark world. Sudol essays the role of mind-reading Queenie in the franchise.
Talking more about her experience with Deep, she said: “At the end of the movie, there is a scene which is particularly painful for me and we had to do it over and over again. I was like yelling in the scene.
“It was awful and at a certain point, I couldn’t stop crying. I went to a corner. He came over and he just started telling me a story about him being invited to some weird political party thing. It was hilarious. The stuff he was saying and the way they were reacting. He completely, without making any note of the state I was in or making me self-conscious, genuinely distracted me. It was a kind thing to do. He didn’t have to do it.
“He knew where I was at and I really respect that and appreciate that.”
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is the second in the planned five movies spin-off franchise from the “Harry Potter” films. The first part “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” came out in 2016.
With the franchise, J.K. Rowling went back in time to introduce a thriving world of magic, magical creatures and wizards in New York. It brought forward new characters like Tina (Katherine Waterston), Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), Grindelwald, Queenie and Kowalski (Dan Fogler).
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” takes forward the story, bringing a more darker and complex view of the world and sets the foundation of the events leading to the universe of the popular “Harry Potter” world.
Her character was introduced as a friendly and lovable character, who went on to have a cute love story with Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). But in the second part, Queenie will be seen treading the darker path.
Did she know about the progression of her character?
“I was told certain things way before when the script got to us. I was prepared in certain way for the arch. But I couldn’t wrap my head around that.”
“You have this young woman who desperately wants to have a family. She has been an orphan and it has always been her and her sister. She falls in love which alienates her from her sister because her sister is a rule follower. So the foundation of her family is ruptured. It is not solid anymore and she wants to solidify it so badly. She makes some decisions which may be in hindsight aren’t necessarily the wisest but she is doing what she can out of a lot of fear.”
(Sugandha Rawal was in Los Angeles at the invitation of Warner Bros. Pictures. She can be contacted at [email protected])
–IANS
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