In November of 2018, fans of J.K. Rowling’s iconic Wizarding World films were treated to the second installment in Harry Potter spinoff series Fantastic Beasts. Titled The Crimes of Grindelwald, it was panned by the majority of critics but there were still quite a number of viewers that found a lot to enjoy with the sequel. And now that its making its way to home video next month, the cast and crew have begun doing some press where they’ve spoken about how tricky it was to shoot the pic.
Eddie Redmayne, who portrays Newt Scamander, recently spoke to CinemaBlend and explained how it was a bit difficult to film certain sequences involving computer-generated imagery (CGI).
Working with CGI beasts is hilarious. It’s totally bizarre. It’s as weird and odd as you would imagine it to be. Sometimes you’re working with actually nothing, so if you’re, Pickett for example, you just imagine him there. And then, sometimes, you have these amazing puppeteers doing extraordinary things. Sometimes you have men in full body green suits looking ridiculous and you’re trying to pretend they are some wondrous, fantastical, creature. And sometimes you’re looking at a cross on a stick.
This isn’t terribly surprising to hear. After all, many stars in big budget fantasy films have had an extremely tough time working on scenes that involve CGI creatures and imagery, as the actor has to act all by themselves while pretending that someone or something’s actually there. The Hobbit‘s Ian McKellen, for instance, has opened up about a similar situation while he was filming the first entry in the trilogy, An Unexpected Journey, saying that he teared up from the difficulty of it.
If you’re looking to learn more about what went into the recent Wizarding World sequel though, or just happened to miss the movie while it was in theaters, you can pick up Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald on DVD and Blu-ray on March 12th.