Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald will feature another familiar face from the original Harry Potter saga: Minerva McGonagall.
McGonagall is a main fixture of the original film and book series, and a younger version of herself will appear in the upcoming Warner Bros. spinoff film, PopCulture.com has learned.
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While McGonagall was originally portrayed on-screen by Maggie Smith, Irish actress Fiona Glascott will step into the role for The Crimes of Grindelwald. Glascott was known to be appearing in the film, but her role was not revealed until Warner Bros. released the full cast list on Wednesday.
Glascott, 35, has numerous film and television credits to her name, including roles in the Showtime series Episodes, the 2015 Saoirse Ronan-starring Brooklyn and the first Resident Evil movie.
McGonagall will be the second major Harry Potter character to make their way into the Fantastic Beasts series. A young version of Albus Dumbledore is set to be a major role in The Crimes of Grindelwald and will be played by Jude Law (with Toby Regbo also appearing as an even younger version of the wizard).
McGonagall’s appearance is especially surprising due to the character’s canonical timeline. Based on the series’ lore, she is born in 1935 and does not enroll at Hogwarts until 1947. The first spinoff film, 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, is set in 1926. This upcoming installment will take play just months after the previous film, meaning that McGonagall should not even be alive.
With all that in mind, it can be presumed the film will simply gloss over the canonical birth date in order to work in an adult version of the beloved Hogwarts professor.
Nothing is known about McGonagall’s role in the plot of The Crimes of Grindelwald. Considering that the character and Glascott are not mentioned in the production notes released by Warner Bros. on Thursday, it is safe to assume she will only play a minor role in the movie’s events.
The main thread of the second Fantastic Beasts movie will be Newt Scamander’s (Eddie Redmayne) quest to take down Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp). With the guidance of Dumbledore, Scamander and his allies will try to thwart the evil wizard’s attempts to take the magical world to war against the Muggle (non-magical) world.
In addition to the aforementioned cast members, the film also stars Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Zoë Kravitz and Callum Turner.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald will open in theaters on Friday, Nov. 16.
Photo Credit: Warner Bros.
