Pottermore’s Talks Wands with Molly Sole: Harry Potter Wand Designer

Pottermore had the opportunity to sit and talk with Molly Sole, the woman who has designed all of the character wands for the Fantastic Beasts films. Ms. Sole talked of how the wand designs came to be, how they were made to reflect the character they belonged to (the wand chooses the wizard, remember), and the actors’ tastes and influences that were applied to their own wands.

Pictures were not included in the article, of course, as the article ends more will be revealed, “all in good time.” However, the descriptions of the wands and how they were conceived is more than enough to bring some images to mind.

Pottermore reports:

‘I know from the Harry books that the wizard has to have an affinity with the wand. It picks them,’ she says. ‘It’s a bit like people and their dogs. I feel like you can see traces of the wand in the wizard and the wizard in the wand. So we had to imagine the feel and the material of the wand as a good partnership with the character.’

‘This one has to be for Newt,’ I say, pointing to a modest wooden wand.

‘We wanted it to relate somehow to the animal kingdom,’ she tells me, ‘but we thought it was sort-of inappropriate to give him anything that might have a trophy feel to it. We didn’t think he would be into that at all. The main part of this one is wood.

‘Is this one Queenie’s?’ I ask, jabbing the table with my finger like I’m a contestant on some sort of impromptu ‘Guess the Wand’ game show. ‘That’s got to be the closest thing to a sexy wand I’ve ever seen. It can only belong to Queenie.’

‘That’s Queenie’s, yes,’ Molly says. ‘[Alison Sudol] did have a little bit of influence on hers because she really likes Art Deco. We put her taste in that and it really helped us get the time period, the era, into the design.

‘Whereas Tina’s wand is more functional, more understated. David [Yates] didn’t want it to be too jazzy because that wouldn’t suit Tina. We used an antique conductor’s wand for the basis of Graves’s wand.’

To read more about this magical meeting, fly on over to Pottermore.