Leaky’s “Fantastic Beasts” Set Report: Talking with David Yates

Sep 12, 2016

Posted by: Catherine

Exclusives, Fantastic Beasts, Fantastic Beasts Movie, Interviews, SetReports, TLC Interviews, Warner Bros., Yates, Yates Interviews

We walked past large warehouse buildings that held stages E and F, D and C, and found ourselves being lead to one of the brick buildings in the center of it all. In the large open room, set up to be a space for meetings or to lounge, we found tables had been set up for us in a nice big square. Down the hall, there were make up and dressing rooms.

 

We barely sat down when Yates and several of his crew bustled in the door. He could only stay for a short while, before he was needed back on set. As the director and head of the entire operation, hardly anything could get done without him.

 

The first question on all of our minds, as we looked at the director who took on most of the half of the Harry Potter films (more than any other director) was what brought him back to this world? What was it like working with Jo again?

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QUESTION

Hi, David. What made you come back to the wizarding world?

DAVID YATES

Well, they sent me the script and I wasn’t certain ’cause I’d spent six years here on those four Potter films and they sent me the script and I was really nervous ’cause I had to really fall in love with it to come back. And I didn’t know if I could come back. And then, it was just the most delightful read. It was charming, moving, tender. It felt fresh and it was with a bunch of people that I really love working with so, it was a bit of a no-brainer.

 

QUESTION

It’s so exciting for you because you know, nothing really touches upon this aspect of the wizarding world. It’s just America alone much less the period piece so, was that exciting for you that you were going to get to explore something that was so sort of fresh even though it is part of this larger world?

DAVID YATES

Do you know what was lovely for me, is with Potter the train had already left the station when I jumped on it. You know it was half way along the tracks and I got to do my thing with it but all the pieces were already on the table. Whereas, with this movie I built it from the ground up effectively. So, for a film maker and the story teller that is always the most exciting thing– to sort of cast it, to create it, to build it. I loved Jo’s concept of just dropping it into New York in nineteen twenty six. Taking her universe but putting it through that paradigm was really exciting. And works.

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QUESTION

Having the freedom to do that– to build from the ground up… What’s it been like not having the pressure from a book series where something is already revealed and you have fans and critics who have their own idea of what it should be like?

DAVID YATES

It’s liberating… it’s incredibly liberating. And also, you know with the books, everybody had their own their own idea of what certain characters should be like, how the story should evolve. You’re always working in the context of people’s expectations which is fine and great and wonderful, as it should be actually ’cause they are wonderful books. But what’s marvelous about this series is nobody has ever read them. <laughs> And they feel really fresh and we’re not limited by page one to page four hundred and sixty five of something that pre-exists.

 

The only limit is Jo’s imagination which is boundless. And she’s taking us all on quite an extraordinary journey with this story. And this is the first chapter, in a way, and so, it’s lovely not to have the book. But you know, the books and the movies of the Potters, they kind of coexisted in a way I feel. But it’s very exciting not to have peoples own, sort of, versions of the film in their head. They’ve never met Newt Scamander before, in book form and then, well, they haven’t obviously in that little book, but, there’s something really marvelous about introducing them to all those characters and this new world.

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As a director, David Yates is at the helm of the Fantastic Beasts ship. He had to work with the screen play that was written by someone very new to writing screen play. We asked him about the difference between working with Jo Rowling’s novels and her screen plays. Even an author as brilliant as Jo Rowling has a learning curve.

QUESTION

I think one of things I’m most excited about from this is that the film is building on to the Harry Potter cannon. So, I’m wondering if you could talk about working with Rowling and her script, and creating the story for this movie and potentially building it out and planning?

DAVID YATES

Yeah, I first read the script– gosh, it would’ve been the May of twenty fourteen. And it was in its early stages– Jo’s an extraordinary writer, [but] she hasn’t written a screenplay before so, for her this was a new experience. If you work with a traditional screenwriter you’ll give the screenwriter notes on a draft– you’ll spend three days, five days going through the script and you’ll give lots of notes in that and the writer will go away and spend three months or six months re-writing. With Jo it’s a sort of extraordinary process because she doesn’t realize that’s how it should work. So, you give Jo notes and then a week later you’ll get a script. And I’ll be like, whoa! Jo’s just delivered a script– after a week. And what she’ll do is she’ll kind of riff off notes and she’ll create a whole new series of things within that screenplay, which take us off in all sorts of different tangents. So, she’s like a sort of volcano of ideas. [But] the process [is] really [about] pairing down, tuning, finding ultimately the form that would best become a movie.

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[S]he’s a really quick learner so, pretty much after several months of that process she kind of got the form really, really quickly. And realized that it was about pairing down and simplifying, rather than adding absolute new sequences and new ideas all the time. And there were things that were created in this process that will be used next time for the next movie or maybe the movie beyond that. But I think in the process of writing it, she’s already sort of working out what’s coming next. She’s already sort of planning what’s coming next. Some of which she shared with us this week, in fact. She told us what the first act is for the next movie effectively. And so, she has things bubbling away in her head. But I don’t think it’s completely formed all the way through the arc. Where it may well be, she hasn’t showed that. But she has certain things that are well established in her head that she’s shared with us and some things, which I’m sure she’s still figuring out.

 

It turns out, Yates, who maintains the presence of a Buddha-figure (incredibly intelligent, well spoken, soft and gentle, couldn’t possibly imagine him getting angry or frustrated), has a rather different style of directing then most. It is a style that many actors love to work with—from children to older adults.

QUESTION

On your IMDb page you’ve been quoted saying that you like to create an atmosphere where actors feel safe enough to take risks. How have you been able to do that with the cast that you have for Fantastic Beasts?

DAVID YATES

Well, you just let them play as much as possible. And you encourage them and you make them feel safe. You guide them if you don’t think it’s strong enough. And I think the most important thing is honesty. So, you’re completely transparent with them about what you feel works and what you feel doesn’t work. We often do a thing here where by if they don’t feel like they’ve got it and I think they have. We always go again ’cause I want them to offer the journey that they’re on. And I’m there to guide it. The other thing I do is– I do multiple takes sometimes whereby we don’t cut. It’s something I did with the kids when I was making the Potter films. ‘Cause, you know, the younger cast– often you wanna just let them feel free. And what happens is when you’re shooting a scene, often you’ll just cut. And when you cut, then the make-up go in, the costume go in, the script person goes in, and you stop for ten minutes before you can do another take. And so, I learnt very quickly with the younger cast that it’s much better not to do that because you lose the moment, and you just literally go again. And you don’t let anybody get anywhere near them. You just reset the camera, reset the actors and you go again.

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I started doing that with the grown up actors I work with now. If I throw a note in, I’ll throw it in really quickly so they don’t have to process it too much. Because often if you give too many notes, the actor’s trying to process the note– I’ve got to do that and let me think about that. And so, the second take is all about processing rather than being. So, I try and be as conducive as possible to giving them as much freedom as possible within the space of doing a take to find authenticity. And to find moments that feel truthful for their characters. I try and set an atmosphere on set that’s very positive, that’s very open, everyone feels good about coming to work. It’s as least political as possible, you know. So, it’s about just building a safe, positive, good environment in which actors– ’cause sometimes, on some film sets there’s a bit of tension ’cause there’s a bit of politics going on. And I think that can impact actors ’cause they’re very sensitive. So, we try and keep it fun. Fun and open and positive.

 

After discussing the process of making the movie, we finally got to asking questions about the content within the movie itself. Fantastic Beasts is supposed to be more “adult” than Harry Potter–with adult protagonists with adult problems (though, let’s be honest, Harry went through so much for being a teenager). This change in tone is under the direction of a director. We asked David Yates if he could open up about that a little more.

QUESTION

How did you hit upon the aesthetics of the film, because on the one hand you want it feel in a part of the same universe as the Potter films but also its own thing?

DAVID YATES

I mean ultimately it’s a film that’s quite witty but I’m just using it in a very simple, classical way which is really, hopefully quite elegant and fun. And it’s really creating that period detail in a sort of magic world that exists within Newt’s Scamander’s case. We did a lot of R&D, both in terms of the creatures and the beasts and in terms of the environments and we obviously went back to the period. Nineteen twenty six is a great period, and it’s not often brought to the screen and that’s what’s really fun is that period’s under-utilized as a sort of go to sort of environment for a story. So, we went to lots of references and the team– you know, Stuart Craig’s such a wonderful production designer. Philippe Rousselot is a wonderful D.O.P. And we’re sort of, making it feel like it exists within the period but it’ll have a very magical feel, I think.

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QUESTION

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there seems to be a higher element of social, political and even racial sort of themes going on… You know Stuart was talking about, you know, there was a difference between the poor and the rich in the sets here and even like the wizards hiding from the muggles… can you talk about that?

DAVID YATES

In our world and New York at that time was like a champagne bottle about to sort of shake up and explode. It’s a world of great extremes. And Newt is this wonderful character who has chosen to spend most of his time with his extraordinary creatures in his case ’cause he’s not good at really talking to people or identifying. And his journey in this movie as he learns that it’s actually all right to spend time with (laughing) regular people… And to sort of express your humanity through relationships rather than through your hobbies. And so, there are lots of lovely, interesting ideas bubbling away under the surface of this story and the script and the film. But it’s ultimately in this big entertaining package. Jo’s written a really entertaining script that cycles through drama, comedy, it’s got a really lovely, rich, sort of feel to it.

 

The world doesn’t rotate without David Yates in the director’s chair. Before we knew it, he was needed back on set and there was a lot of bustling as the room emptied.





The Leaky Cauldron is not associated with J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., or any of the individuals or companies associated with producing and publishing Harry Potter books and films.