Katherine Waterston Reveals “Fantastic Beasts” Audition Nightmare

From what we’ve seen in the trailers and stills released so far, it’s clear that Katherine Waterston is the perfect casting for Tina in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. However, in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Katherine Waterston admitted that she didn’t think that she would get the part at all. Things could so easily have been different – but we’re certainly very glad that they aren’t!

When she was first told about the role, Waterston said that she didn’t think she had a chance of getting it.

You read who’s involved and what it is, and you think, ‘Well, that’s a nice email, but I’m not going to get this job; that’s way above my pay grade, and it’s not going to happen.’ So the advantage to something like that is that you’re relaxed because you’re so convinced that there’s no way in hell they’ll choose you.

Unfortunately, Waterston didn’t feel that the audition went well at all.

Then at that audition, I thought it really couldn’t have gone worse. […] Well, the casting director had just eaten a lot of cake, and he said, ‘I’m sorry, I just ate a lot of cake,’ and then he had like indigestion during my audition, and he didn’t seem to be watching me. So I thought, ‘Oh, I’m boring him.’

She must have done something right however, because, as we all know, she was cast as Tina – and the rest is history!

I was very surprised to hear that they wanted to put me through the ringer and do a test, and then that’s just a nightmare because then you’re really attached by that point, and you’re fantasizing and thinking about the character and why you’re the only person who can play her because of whatever reasons you’ve dreamed up. You start wanting to play the scenes.

Moving away from her audition experiences, Waterston spoke about what it’s like to become a part of the Harry Potter universe and what it feels like to come into such an established world.

It’s almost like when you’re on a football team or something. You have your fans, and they believe in you, but you still have to win the game. There are people who have really high expectations for what we’re doing. I have to not think about that so that I can be free and play around every day and not feel like I have to get it right. You want to be loose. You have to figure that your character is going to have some comparisons to Hermione. Are you kind of prepared for that? It’s not something I’m thinking about at all. So I guess I’m not prepared! She was amazing.

Waterston also revealed some more information about how hard it was to choose her wand and all the different thoughts that ran through her mind as she considered it.

What wand would choose Tina? And there were all these different kinds, and they would tell different stories. If a really ornate wand chooses you, does that make you think you’re going to have this incredible future? Are you going to become a really important witch? Or if you have a really basic wand, is that going to make you think, ‘Oh, I’m not going to achieve greatness?’ So that was a really fun part of it. At that point, I was so far into it, it was so obvious what wand would be right for me. But I did ask for it to be heavier. It just didn’t feel powerful enough.

It’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into Waterston’s portrayal of Tina, and we can’t wait to learn more about this character and see her on the big screen.

You can read the full interview here.

What do you think Tina’s wand might be like? What are you looking forward to learning about Tina? Let us know in the comments.