Matthew Lewis Talks “Fantastic Beasts” and New Film “The Rise”

While out promoting his latest film release, The Rise, Matthew Lewis commented on the upcoming Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts. It is fairly safe to say he isn’t quite as clued in on the subject as his fellow Potter alumni.

“I don’t even know what it is. I just read about it!” he proclaimed during an interview for Empire Magazine‘s podcast. He then went on to explain the premise to The Rise co-star Luke Treadaway, also present in the interview, who in turn ended up claiming, “It’s torchwood!”

Matthew also discussed Potter in the interview, stating that David Yates was the director he felt he had the greatest affinity with. When Yates first came on board, he set up a meeting with Matthew, to discuss Neville, something none of the previous had done before.

Matt quotes Yate as saying, “Well, I’ve got this idea for [Neville]. This is how I want it to go, but obviously you’ve played him for six, seven years; you know him more than anyone else. Let’s make it very much a partnership.” Matt added that Yates “was really great at getting the best out of people [in performance].”

The full interview, also featuring his co-star Luke Treadaway, can be found here. It is a pretty amusing listen that happens to involve a rather nasty, but highly entertaining, incident involving Matt’s cup of tea.

The Rise, previously called Wasteland and also starring Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew), is a heist story, loosely based on the childhood of the director, Rowan Athale. The film is currently showing in select cinemas around the UK and will be available via video on demand within two weeks.