“The Boy who Lived”, Daniel Radcliffe, has offered up his thoughts on the controversy surrounding the casting of Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts, and its forthcoming sequel The Crimes of Grindelwald.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Radcliffe talked about the decision for the franchise to persevere with an actor who has been accused of spousal abuse, one that has seen criticism levelled at J.K. Rowling, and Warner Bros. in the past few months.
Radcliffe caveated his feelings by acknowledging how it was a difficult subject matter for him to discuss because the creative team behind the Fantastic Beasts movies “gave me a great start in life and an amazing job.” He went on to say “I can see why people are frustrated with the response that they were given from that … I’m not saying anything that anybody hasn’t already said — and this is a weird analogy to draw — [but] in the NFL, there are lots of players arrested for smoking weed and there is other people’s behavior that goes way beyond that and it’s tolerated because they’re very famous players. I suppose the thing I was struck by was, we did have a guy who was reprimanded for weed on the [original Harry Potter] films, essentially, so obviously what Johnny has been accused of is much greater than that.”
The actor in question is Jamie Waylett, who played the Hogwarts bully, Vincent Crabbe, but was cut from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 when arrested for growing marijuana.
SEE ALSO: Grindelwald and Dumbledore featured in new Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald images
At the end of the first film, the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) was captured by MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America), with the help of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). But, making good on his threat, Grindelwald escaped custody and has set about gathering followers, most unsuspecting of his true agenda: to raise pure-blood wizards up to rule over all non-magical beings.
In an effort to thwart Grindelwald’s plans, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is set for release on November 18th 2018 and sees David Yates directing a cast that includes Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, Katherine Waterston as Tina Goldstein, Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein, Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski, Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone, Zoe Kravitz as Leta Lestrange, Kevin Guthrie as Abernathy, Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald, Jude Law as Albus Dumbledore, Callum Turner as Theseus Scamander, William Nadylam as Yusuf Kama, Ingvar Sigurdsson as Grimmson, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Skender, David Sakurai as Krall, Brontis Jodorowsky as Nicolas Flamel, Wolf Roth as Spielman, Victoria Yeates as Bunty, Derek Riddell as Torquil Travers, Poppy Corby-Tuech as Rosier, Cornell S. John as Arnold Guzman and Claudia Kim as Maledictus.
