The 'Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore' wands stay under 007 levels of security

Ahead of the April 15 premiere of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the film’s cast descended on New York City to attend Warner Bros.’s IMAX-exclusive fan event and treat a select group of Potter superfans — and SYFY — to an early screening of the film. 

With the enormous IMAX theater at AMC Lincoln Square 13 filled to the brim as Bellatrix Lestrange’s Gringotts vault, the crowd cheered as director David Yates, Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander), Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski), Jessica Williams (Lally Hicks), William Nadylam (Yusuf Kama), and Victoria Yeates (Bunty Broadacre) took their seats at the front of the room to answer some burning questions ahead of the screening — sans spoilers, of course!

Before that, though, the audience got a video message from Jude Law (Albus Dumbledore), Mads Mikkelsen (Gellert Grindelwald), and Alison Sudol (Queenie Goldstein) in London; they regretted not being able to make the screening but wished everyone happy viewing.

So, what’s in store for our heroes in the third installment in the Fantastic Beasts series? Redmayne promised some (ahem) fantastic beasts new and old to delight viewers and keep Newt on his toes. One beast, in particular, proves especially important in this film, but we won’t be telling you which here.

This film also marks more significant roles for both Williams and Nadylam’s characters, both of whom join up with Dumbledore’s group, as Williams explained.

“Professor Eulalie Hicks… is a charms professor and Ilvermorny,” she said. “She is someone who is recruited by Dumbledore to join his team of misfits to help defeat Grindelwald and move against Grindelwald. What’s great about her is that she’s really good at seeing to the heart of people and I think that she’s someone you can really depend on and she does some really cool magic in this.” 

Nadylam, when asked about Yusuf’s role in the film, detailed how his character’s past — which we’ve seen play out in the previous films — has left him an unhappy person. He is without family or people he feels he can trust. However, with Dumbledore’s “misfits,” as Williams described it, at his side, he might find a new family… Keyword being “might.”

When one fan asked which of the cast broke the most wands when filming, Williams assured everyone that there’s little opportunity for anyone to break wands on set given how well the WB team keeps them safe and secure.

“Daniel Radcliffe must have broken a million wands, right?” Williams joked. “But now it’s like they give you a wand in a briefcase and then they take it from you.” 

“It’s like James Bond,” Redmayne added, holding his hands up to approximate the size of the kind of stainless steel briefcase 007 would store his gadgets in. “Q comes and brings it to you; they’re pretty well protected.” 

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore premieres in theaters on April 15.

Watch SYFY's "Wizarding World Week" marathon of all eight Harry Potter films and the first two installments of the Fantastic Beasts franchise from April 9-15.