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British girls vie for co-star chance in Harry Potter spin-off movie

British girls vie for co-star chance in Harry Potter spin-off movie
July 18, 2015
LONDON - Thousands of girls queued to audition in east London on Saturday for a chance to co-star in the planned Harry Potter spin-off movie "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". Whoever gets the role will star alongside Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne, who will portray "magizoologist" Newt Scamander. Some girls queued from as early as 3 a.m. (0200 GMT) for the auditions, having traveled from all over Britain to the ExCel exhibition center in London's Docklands, in the hope of entering J.K. Rowling's world of magic in the eagerly anticipated film. Movie group Warner Bros and the film makers are looking for a girl aged between eight and 12 to take on the role of Modesty, a character they describe as "a haunted young girl with an inner strength and stillness". Modesty also "has an ability to see deep into people and understand them". Eleven-year-old Holly said she had taken the audition seriously with a lot of preparation. "I really love Harry Potter, I love the magic and everything. It's really imaginative. "And I love acting. Yeah, and I just kind of started to consider the character, and I, like, almost put myself in her shoes." Josephine, 12, and her sister Elisa, 9, had practiced their lines together. "Me and my sister, we just practiced doing some lines together, just learning stuff. We are thinking about the character because she is haunted." But some, like Taylor, had only just found out about the audition and came to try their luck. "I didn't really prepare because my mum just told me about it. I've done shows before." The doors opened at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT) to reveal a stream of hopefuls seeking the chance to become the next Emma Watson, who starred as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series. Kaitlyn traveled from Manchester in northern England and was one of the first to get a certificate acknowledging her participation. "We got our picture taken, we went in, told them information about us, and then we ... got into a circle and we jumped in the middle doing an action and a sound," she said, describing her audition experience. The story, set in New York and based on Rowling's book of the same name featuring dozens of imaginary creatures such as the Billywig, Flobberworm and Snidget, is the author's first screenplay. It is said to take place some 70 years before the events in the hugely successfully Harry Potter saga. -Reuters