Full disclosure, right off the bat: I didn’t enjoy Inherent Vice. I thought it was a tiresome exercise in style over substance, an incoherent mess of a movie that I could never settle into. I did however really enjoy Katherine Waterston‘s performance in the film, so it brings me a bit of joy to hear she will be stepping in front of the camera soon in a major starring role, even if it is in a spinoff of a franchise I never really went gaga for.
[amz asin=”B005CRQ3IE” size=”small”]According to The Hollywood Reporter, Waterston has nabbed the lead female role opposite Eddie Redmayne in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Warner Bros. forthcoming spinoff of its Harry Potter franchise. The film is based on Potter’s Hogwarts textbook of the same name and will follow the adventures of the book’s fictitious author Newt Scamander (Redmayne), the Wizarding World’s preeminent magizoologist, who in his travels has encountered and documented a myriad of magical creatures, thus the title of his book.
Waterston’s name was mentioned alongside Kate Upton‘s and Elizabeth Debicki‘s (The Great Gatsby) just last month on a shortlist for the role of Tina, or Porpentina, a witch who meets Scamander when he stops in New York City during his travels. Ultimately, it seems Waterston’s name is the one that rose to the top, and for good reason, as her limited work thus far has proven quite impressive.
Expect more casting news on this one in the near future, as those shortlists also included names like Saoirse Ronan, Dakota Fanning, Lili Simmons (“True Detective“) and Alison Sudol (“Transparent“) up against each other for the role of Tina’s younger sister Queenie, while Dan Fogler, Steve Zissis (“Togetherness“) and Zack Pearlman (“Mulaney“) were mentioned as contending for the role of Scamander’s enemy Jacob.
