“Fantastic Beasts” actor Kevin Guthrie convicted of sexual assault

Scottish actor Kevin Guthrie, 33, who played Abernathy in all three of the Fantastic Beasts films, has been convicted of sexual assault at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

Leaky will not report details of the assault, but you can read about the case here or here.

Guthrie is out on bail, but is likely facing a custodial sentence. He has been placed on the sexual offenders register in the UK. Although there is no official word from Warner Bros. yet, he would certainly be dropped from future Fantastic Beasts films, if his character were scheduled to appear in them. We do not know if his character would have appeared in the fourth or fifth films. In fact, the scripts for those films likely have not even been written yet, and could even be written differently now in light of the need to change actors if his character were to appear. We know Abernathy appears in the third film, but his character could die in this film or otherwise exit the narrative coincidental to the actor’s crime, which would make the future casting issue moot.

A more urgent problem is that Fantastic Beasts 3 is in post-production so it remains to be seen what will happen regarding his character. Can scenes in which Abernathy appears be left on the cutting room floor without damaging the narrative? Could such scenes somehow be re-shot without him? The latter does not seem feasible. Leaky will update this piece when we have news.