This film gave a lot of answers, but also a lot of questions. Do you know what answers we have coming already?
David Yates: Jo has got a good sense of where it’s all going. She started writing the first screenplay and, at that point it was just going to be a trilogy, and then about halfway through writing the second film she suddenly got really excited and decided there would be five. And she did pitch a very rough shape of where it was all going, but she’s still kind of formulating it. But it’s all bubbling away inside her head. So she has a good idea. The specifics she’s fine tuning. The questions are good in a long form narrative. I think questions are important. Question marks are important, I think, because they’re what makes you want to see what happens next. So there are question marks along the way, but in the second movie Dumbledore comes back. We’ll have good scenes with Newt in the second movie.

You’re casting Dumbledore now, right?
David Yates: We’re discussing who would play Dumbledore.

David Heyman: Any thoughts?
David Yates: Yeah, suggestions would be good. Jared Harris?

SnitchSeeker: It won’t be Michael Gambon? We’ve had so many people ask, “Is it Michael Gambon?”
David Heyman: No, we need a younger Dumbledore.

David Yates: So anyhow, we’re passing around ideas. Any recommendations?

SnitchSeeker: Somebody tall and thin. Domhnall Gleeson would’ve been great, but he’s already Bill.

So we have to ask: Johnny Depp. How did that come about – casting him, bringing him into the series – and when did he film?
David Heyman: It was early. It’s completely bonkers that it … we can keep very few secrets nowadays. Especially something like that, where he came to Leavesden and we filmed over two days and it didn’t come out. It was mad.

David Yates: He was sworn to secrecy. People tend to break promises.

David Heyman: The whole principal of casting the movie was go for the best actor for the most inspired, right fit for that character. As we started to approach Grindelwald, we thought, “Who’s gonna 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. But no one takes away your pure talent. And John Depp is a real artist. He’s created several characters who’ve really resonated in our popular culture. He’s a really brilliant, brilliant actor and we were excited about seeing what he would do with this kind of character. He’s fearless. He’s imaginative. He’s ambitious. We thought he’d 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.

David Yates: Grindelwald’s an iconic character, so I think it was important to have someone who’s got that weight. There’s a reason why he’s got that weight - because he’s a fine actor who makes unexpected choices.

SnitchSeeker: How did you approach him?
David Heyman: The usual thing is our casting director Fiona will phone up his agent and say, “Look, would Johnny be interesting in talking about the character?” And he was. The great thing about making these movies is, ultimately, generally most people we approach actor-wise … when you’re setting up a movie – any other movie – it’s always a struggle. You have to get through the door and you have to get the script in there. You have to do a bit of a wooing game to get who you want.

But with both Potter and Fantastic Beasts, it was amazing. You can say, “We’re making this movie. It’s J.K. Rowling – she’s writing it – and would you …” “Yeah!” “Um, do you want to see a script?” “Oh yeah! Okay!” Generally it doesn’t work that way with everybody. There are some people who are a bit more reluctant, but generally people are very intrigued about this world, and about where it can go. It makes the whole casting process easy.

David Heyman: We had one choice for Newt. It was Eddie and he said yes.

The films are called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. So are the beasts themselves going to take a step back in the coming four films and Grindelwald’s going to take center stage?
David Yates: The beasts are going to feature slightly less in the second movie, and Grindelwald takes more of a foreground. But we love the beasts so much. There’s an amazing beast in the second movie – a Chinese beast, actually – which features. We’re exploring how we can get a couple more beasts into the second film because we enjoy them.

David Heyman: But, you know, I think beasts, in a way ... there are creatures that are in the case, but essentially the beasts are within each of us. Isn’t that what happens with Credence. When his essence is repressed, a form of beast is unleashed. So I think the beasts will continue to play a part. Also it’s so much a part of what Jo writes about, which is consequences of oppression.

Are you going to be directing all five?
David Yates: You know, we make them one at a time. I loved working with Jo and David and Steve [Kloves]. It’s a pleasure. I’m certainly making the next one. We’ll just take it one movie at a time.

Was there any particular point that was an adventure for you because you didn’t have everything in front of you while you were having to create these scenes?
David Yates: Obviously we had the screenplay, which is so significant. What was lovely about making Beasts compared to making Potter is that we weren’t adapting a previous work. We weren’t abridging and changing. We were able, purely from Jo’s head, straight on the page from the script straight into the cinema. There’s something really exciting about that. Everybody takes on a ship of those books – we all do.

When you read the book you have your favorite chapters, your favorite characters, and it’s heart-breaking when you lose something. When you adapt something, it’s always the echo of something, in a strange way. It can never be as kinetic or as immersive as what you first experience when you open up that page. But with a movie, it’s a different form. Jo gave us a terrific script, which we developed over a period of a year or so. There’s something really fresher about going straight into the cinema with that.

David Heyman: In terms of inventing the world, in terms of the design, I think we approached everything – Stuart Craig, the production designer, Colleen Atwood, the costume designer on this, where Jany [Temime] had been the costume designer on six of the Potters – it’s real. We are creating a fantasy world. We’re taking a world that’s like the real world and then doing this – so it’s just kind of tweaked. So there’s this whole architectural voracity about it. It’s not just wild imagination without grounding.

That was David’s approach with the beasts themselves. He wanted those beasts to be rooted in the real world because the real world is as extraordinary as anything you can invent. Using that as the foundation, we brought our animation supervisor into the design process because we wanted the language of the design to lead to movement that was organic and possible, as opposed to being purely fantastical. We try and root everything. Everything’s grounded.

Every script has to be chopped down at some point. With this movie there’s so much in there, was anything that was less expanded or deleted that we’ll see down the road once the DVD comes out?
David Heyman: Yes, you will.

So many of the TV clips didn’t seem to make it into the film.
David Yates: Because we finished the movie three weeks ago. Literally, some things came out at the last minute. There’s a lovely scene with Jacob. His girlfriend leaves him. It’s a really beautiful scene. That will be on the DVD extras.

David Heyman: There’s quite a lot.

David Yates: It’s amazing. Individually all the scenes went really well on their own. I was watching them with Mark [Day], my editor, the other week and I thought, “Why did we take that out? It was great!” Then, of course, in context, it doesn’t quite hold its own. It doesn’t have this bite or momentum that you need. But yeah, we lost that lovely scene.

David Heyman: In some ways, I think, we’ve got more DVD scenes on this than we had on any of the Potters.

You’re selling T-shirts with “I Want to Be a Wizard” on them, and then that wasn’t in there.
David Heyman: I tell you what was a great scene. Alison and Katherine, they do a little song about an old school. They do the Ilvermorny song. I got Alison to write it because Alison’s a really gifted songwriter. So she wrote this absolutely beautiful song. They stand up there and they sing it together and the boys watch. And as the boys are watching, they slowly fall in love. Frankly, it’s my favorite scene in the entire movie. But the momentum of the storytelling at that point was starting to drag a little bit. As delightful as it was, it just stopped the movie. But it’ll be on the DVD extras and it is so charming. It’s a really beautiful moment.

What do you love about being storytellers?
David Yates: For the cinema, what I love, is you sit in a room with 500 strangers and you watch something, and if it’s compelling and interesting enough, what you do is end up sharing what it is to be alive. You share emotion, you share scary stuff and you share it with strangers – that’s the really intriguing thing. And when you laugh together with 500 people, when you’re moved in a moment with 500 people you may never see again other than in that theater, you’re sharing what it is to be a human being.

It crosses languages, cultural barriers – it crosses all of that – and tell us what it is to be alive together. For me, it’s a wonderful reminder that we’re all the same underneath. We might be different. We might come from different backgrounds. We might have different political agendas. But ultimately, we’re all people together. We share a common experience of living and life – and that’s what I love about the cinema. It’s a communal experience.

No matter what a story is about, you want something to be pertinent to what’s going on right now. Endangered species, corruption in the police department, corruption in the government – were all of those layers to this film that speak to a more adult generation intentional?
David Yates: Yes, because you never make anything in a vacuum. When Jo’s writing the screenplay, she’s tuned in to the world. She’s curious. We all are. Every day, you get up. You go to work. We’re building sets. We’re designing creatures. We’re doing script revisions. But every day, we read the newspapers. We talk to our friends. We see the shifts and eddies in the world around us and they inevitably distill themselves into the material.

You can’t help but reflect this time that you’re living in and creating your work in. Inevitably when someone like Jo is writing a screenplay, she concerned and engaged in what’s happening out in the world. We all are. So it filters its way in and it finds its expression somewhere. The movie’s not political with a capital P. It’s designed to entertain. It’s designed to move us and amuse us and engage us, but it is inevitable that it’s gonna reflect what’s happening.

David Heyman: The themes aren’t something that can’t last. They’re timeless. Themes of tolerance. The way that people are stigmatized. It’s a story of outsiders, and we all feel like outsiders. No matter how much we love our friends, partners, and husbands and wives – we feel alone. We sometimes feel the social awkwardness of Newt. I think we all feel it somewhere at some point. There’s a lot connected to a world divided that’s very resonant today. It was resonant in the 1920s and ‘30s too. It was resonant in the stigmatization of the Salem Witch Trials.

We seem to be scared of or vulnerable to stigmatize others. That is the subject of this film, and it’s the subject of all of Jo’s films. Subject is maybe too sharp - it’s themes that exist within those worlds. What she’s writing, what she made or believes, is real big entertainment – fun and adventurous and makes you laugh and moves you. Hopefully you’re moved by it.

Jo’s themes focus a lot on children, her philanthropy work as well. The treatment of children, how important they are and their role in making adult decisions. We saw a lot of that with Credence and Modesty. Will that be a theme that will continue through the rest of the four films?
David Yates: I think what’s really powerful about her work is she isn’t afraid to take children to dark places. She’s not afraid to tell stories that explore how scary the world can be. Interestingly enough, we were concerned a little bit, early on in the process, will children enjoy this movie? Because it’s got some dark ideas in it. But Jo and her work has always gone there. She’s always been keen to deal with death and bereavement, and characters that are corrosive and dangerous. I think that will continue – in the sense that, hopefully, a younger audience will still be able to engage in the story and deal with and be introduced to those grown-up things. But going forward in the next story, in the next script, Modesty isn’t in the next story. We follow Credence further. He becomes quite pivotal actually. Credence is quite crucial.

David Heyman: But, in a way, I think these four characters have certain childlike qualities.

David Yates: They’re like Grown-up kids.

David Heyman: It isn’t that dark, but also the darkness is something that is a constant in classical children’s literature. When you look at Grimm’s Fairy-tales, look at Rold Dahl, they were almost preparatory stories preparing young children for the challenges of life ahead. Gennerally we’ve found with Potter that children are much more comfortable going to a dark place. They like it. They’re not made to feel patronized. It’s a positive thing.

There have been a lot of rumors that the second movie is going to take place in Paris. Can you confirm or deny that?
David Yates: We confirm it.

Do you think the trend will continue that the other movies will be in different cities, countries – and will they go back to the UK?
David Yates: We do go back to the UK in the second film as well. So it’s in the UK and Paris. I’m not quite sure where Jo’s setting the rest of the movies. I think they’ll be European-centric, but I’m not sure yet because it’s still bubbling in her head.

David Heyman: We’re trying to figure out where we want to go on holiday. (laughs)

David Yates: The Carribbean would be good. I think it will be difficult to ignore America in this one, but the next one is Europe.