Dan Fogler, who plays No-Maj Jacob Kowalski in
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, finally revealed the reason Newt Scamander found himself in New York City at the start of the first movie of the trilogy.
The actor spoke to press at CinemaCon earlier this month, and also revealed how his character Jacob meets Newt and their budding relationship. Do note that the conversation does reveal a lot of spoilers for the start of the movie, so fair warning to avoid spoilers.
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Dan Fogler: I play Jacob, just a regular guy back from [World War I], in Fantastic Beasts.
[J.K. Rowling] writes this story about Newt coming to New York to buy a gift, and he has this case, which is essentially a zoo full of these creatures that he's collected over the years.
He and I literally bump into each other, our cases get switched up. I open my case, thinking that inside are gonna be pastries, and it's actually an entire zoo of magical creatures that comes stampeding out. One of them bites me.
Newt, who's more of a misanthropic character and closer to the animals than he is to humans, he feels responsible for me. He doesn't want me to die because of this bite, so he takes me along and tries to heal me as we collect all these creatures in the city. Over the course of that, he and I become friends. It's like Sherlock and Watson, the origin story.
Fogler also revealed to
Yahoo! that when he spoke to J.K Rowling on the Leavesden set of Fantastic Beasts last year, she told the cast about their characters, and futures:
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“She told us about our characters, and the futures of our characters, and she really was great,” Fogler said. “She’s so passionate about it. She was really excited to share with us. She’s excited to share it with the world.”
Fogler also said that he loved working alongside Ron Perlman in the movie, who plays the goblin Gnarlack, and Jon Voight, who portrays Henry Shaw, Sr.
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“I got to work with Ron Perlman. I’ve been a fan of his forever, since he was Vincent on Beauty and the Beast,” said Fogler.
“And I didn’t get to work with him, but I got to hang out with Jon Voight. He was on set a lot… He was walking around like, 'Holy smokes, this is the biggest thing I’ve ever been a part of.’ Him saying that just puts everything in perspective.”
Eddie Redmayne also chatted at CinemaCon about Newt being a passionate magizoologist and a loner who finds himself in New York City with his case full of creatures. That can be seen here.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, written by the
Harry Potter author, hits theaters and IMAX 3D this November.