Fantastic Beasts Cast and Crew Reflect on the Joy of Returning to Hogwarts

Jude Law lived the ultimate fan experience on the set of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. The most magical place in the wizarding world is undoubtedly Hogwarts. In the Harry Potter series, we got to experience it for the first time along with Harry and his fellow first years. Pictures talked, rooms took shape as needed, plants screamed. There were surprises and mysteries around every corner. Now on the set of The Crimes of Grindelwald, Jude Law explains in a new featurette what it felt like to work in the magical place he’d watched as a fan for so many years.

One of the things that was most fun about the Harry Potter series was watching the students in their studies. Some subjects came easier than others and everyone had to learn wizarding history. Of course, Harry and his contemporaries were actually living characters in the raging the battle against the dark arts. However, there was a lot that came before them that we’ve only heard in stories. Now, as Fantastic Beasts nears the Harry Potter timeline, we will get to see some of those events play out.

“Those names, the stories, the history that sit in the back of our mind from the Potter series begin to weave their way into Beasts,” actor Eddie Redmayne teased.

Perhaps the most awestruck was Albus Dumbledore himself. Jude Law plays the professor who later becomes headmaster. His scenes take him inside the classroom where we actually see Dumbledore teaching. The first Fantastic Beasts didn’t venture to Hogwarts, so this is the first visit to the school since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 in 2011.

“It was a slightly odd, out of body experience because I’ve watched with everyone else those classes. Suddenly to be in it, you’re in there doing it, but then you look back as yourself and realize how special it was,” Jude Law said.

It is fitting that Dumbledore would have such respect and reverence for Hogwarts. The powerful wizard was always sage and we’d like to think he would smile at Law’s appreciation for the classroom.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald flies into theaters November 16.