As star Eddie Redmayne reveals an on-set injury that only wizards understand

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald type Movie

Newt Scamander finds himself in a dark and scary place in a new photo from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

In an exclusive first-look image, we see Newt (Eddie Redmayne) in a sewer tunnel system, with his attention fixed on… something (hopefully it’s not a killer clown)…

Image zoom Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.

Bonus: In a second new photo, this one from behind the scenes, we see Redmayne hanging out backstage with his costar Jude Law, who plays Albus Dumbledore. Notice it reveals a different Dumbledore costume compared to the previous cast photo; here he’s dressed like a muggle…

Image zoom Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros.

We recently spoke to Redmayne, who’s currently in the middle of shooting Crimes of Grindelwald in London and he revealed he’s injured — well, sort of. The Oscar-winning actor has been stricken with an affliction that the cast has dubbed Wand Shoulder Strain. “It’s from doing some quite hardcore wand action,” Redmayne says of the magical world’s characteristic spell-casting gestures, “but I’m not getting any better for it.”

While Redmayne’s rotator cuff may be weakening, the epic story of Fantastic Beasts, however, is looking much improved. The second of a planned five tales shifts the action across the pond to Paris, as Newt teams with his favorite Hogwarts professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) to hunt down the nefarious wizard Gillert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) — though that’s really just a portion of screenwriter J.K. Rowling’s sprawling story, which introduces several new characters (such as Newt’s ex-love Leta Lestrange played by Zoe Kravitz) along with bringing back familiar faces from 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them (like Newt’s American love interest Tina Goldstein played by Katherine Waterston).

“The first film had a level of whimsy; the characters felt like children in grown-up bodies,” notes director David Yates. “In this movie, it gets grittier and more nuanced and detailed. It’s quite a romantic film, it’s a thriller, it’s quite an interesting combination of genres you rarely see together. I think it will surprise people.”

Assuming, that is, that Redmayne can keep intensely waving his arms.

A version of this story appears in the First Look issue of Entertainment Weekly, on newsstands Friday. For more exclusive interviews and First Look photos only in EW, buy it here or subscribe now.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is slated for release on Nov. 16, 2018.

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