Eddie Redmayne Claims Outtakes Of His ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Mating Dance Could End His Career – Will They Appear On The Blu-Ray?
Eddie Redmayne’s foray into Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them required him to do a “pretty humiliating” mating dance which he joked could be detrimental to his career. The Academy Award-winner was tasked to create the steps himself, which prompted him to ask help from choreographer Alexander Reynolds. Redmayne reveals that his practice sessions could end his career.
“She and I went into a huge hole of watching birds do mating dances, and I then did, I videoed myself. Or no, she videoed me doing about 10 different equally humiliating mating dances. The longest hours of my life, were between each time I sent one of those videos to David Yates, and waited for feedback. [laughter] And what you saw in the film was pretty humiliating, but out there, there are several videos that would end my career.”
Redmayne previously worked with Reynolds on The Danish Girl and The Theory of Everything. Since Yates has the copies of the videos, some are wondering if the outtakes will come out on the Blu-Ray of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Redmayne’s character, Newt Scamander, needed to do the mating dance in an attempt to lure the erumpent (a cross between an elephant and rhino) back to his enchanted suitcase. Earlier this month, Redmayne taught Jimmy Fallon the steps to his dance with the CGI beast.
In real life, the actor also has his own “fantastic beast” and it’s a bear named Frank which he got from an airline. He said that EasyJet sold Frank the Bear and promised to award cash prize and even free flights to those who would take a photo of him in exotic locations. Redmayne said that Frank became their constant travel companion because of that.
The Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise will reportedly have a total of five films, but it isn’t known yet if Newt will appear in the remaining movies. Nevertheless, the chance to meet the woman behind the celebrated Harry Potter series was enough for Redmayne. He recalled their meeting to the Mirror.
“My first meeting with J.K. Rowling was a week before we started filming and I had been working on the character for a few months and we only had an hour together. She is so formidable that there’s a kind of excitement to that in itself. We just talked about Newt for an hour, and it was riveting.”
The English actor described Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as a film set in the 1920s that still possessed “the wonder and the complexity and the heart” of the previous Harry Potter films. He recalled how his grandmother reacted upon finding out about his latest role.
“I used to stay with my grandmother in Scotland and would make her take me to magic shops in Edinburgh. So when I was cast in this, she was so thrilled because she says she always knew there would be a wizard part out there for me!”
Potterheads were last treated to a film in 2011 with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. While the Potter stars now have different career paths, Emma Watson still considers the franchise close to her heart. On her Twitter page, she lauded Fantastic Beasts.
Have you seen @fantasticbeasts ? If you have did you love it as much as I did? ?????
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) November 21, 2016
Watson, who will soon star as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, previously praised Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It remains unknown if the play will also have its own movie adaptation, but with four Fantastic Beasts movies in the pipeline, Potterheads will have no reason to be lonely.
Meanwhile, Redmayne looks forward to using his Fantastic Beasts filming break to spend time with his daughter, Iris. He welcomed her with wife, Hannah Bagshawe, in June.
[Featured Image by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for NBC]
