When J.K. Rowling released a series of Pottermore articles about the world’s leading schools of witchcraft and wizardry, the Harry Potter author was secretly signaling to her fanbase that these locations could play a part in her five-part cinematic prequel series. With Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, magizoologist Newt Scamander arrived in Prohibition-era New York City. With The Crimes of Grindelwald, he’s now heading to Paris, France.
This is the country of love, Voltaire, baguettes, and, of course, the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. Fleur Delacour and her peers famously came to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament during Harry Potter’s tutelage, but now Potterheads will get to see the French equivalent of Diagon Alley and the Ministry of Magic, witness a French traveling circus of wonders and observe the day-to-day life of France’s magical beings in the year 1927.
Armed with our own Quick-Quotes Quill, Fandango apparated to the London set of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald at Leavesden Studio to learn everything we could about this part of Rowling’s wizarding world.
Le Departement Magique
London wizards have the Ministry of Magic, American wizards have the Magical Congress of the United States of America and French wizards have Le Departement Magique.
The central room of the magical government’s headquarters is housed in a giant glass dome hidden underground. Constellations in the image of magical creatures — an occamy, streeler, graphorn, hippogriff, niffler, murtlap, thestral, erumpent and centaur — adorn the ceiling as witches and wizards work on their Ticker Tape-esque typewriters (only the keyboards are more in the shape of a crown than an actual keyboard) at the desks in the pen on the ground floor.
“All Jo said in the script was that it was this kind of nouveau building and underground, and the problem with being underground is there's no light,” art director Martin Foley explains. “Nouveau is all about light and nature and these beautiful organic shapes, and when you're underground it's just like a big cave.”
Production designer Stuart Craig decided to pretty much ignore the underground-ness of this Ministry of Magic. “He's put it underground but it has a glass roof and it's a magical glass roof,” Foley says. “There’s all these domes and it's very similar to the gardens. There's a building in Paris it's quite similar to.”
The Matagot, a spirit familiar that resembles a hairless Sphinx cat, is essential to the day-to-day work at Le Departement Magique. They handle menial tasks, such as staffing the mailroom and acting as office security. They won’t attack unless provoked, but when they attack, they transform into a more intimidating form.
Foley also mentions statues of “beautiful ladies” they sculpted for the room in the style of Marianne, the national symbol of the French Republic. “There are wizarding takes on that,” he says. “So this parallels with the world above — but below.”
Other nuances include enchanted Ticker Tapes that weave throughout the department like snakes (a play on the Ministry of Magic’s flying memos) and a pen full of shifting cabinets that house a catalogue of the department’s documents. Newt, Tina Goldstein and Leta Lestrange make an escape route out of this in one action scene that takes place in Le Departement Magique.
Wizard Shops
The magical community in France doesn’t have to fear muggles/no-majs/non-magique as much as they do in America because Europe hasn’t been as marred by the anti-witch sentiment. Nevertheless, they still keep to themselves.
Credence (the returning Ezra Miller) demonstrates the entrance to the French equivalent of a Diagon Alley by approaching a statue of a woman. The enchanted landmark will recognize the wizard and move her leg so that he can slip under the base and into the wizarding part of the city.
Baguettes Magiques is the place to get your wands, Dr. Aziz Branchflore’s Apothicaire has your pigs ears and crocodile jaws, Equipements pour Sorcier has your crystal balls and enchanted compasses, Magillard has you covered on the books front and Gaston McAaron is your pitstop for Quidditch supplies.
Le Cirque Arcanus
“Stupéfiant!” (Amazing!) “Véritable!” (True!) “Bizarres sous etres magique!” (Weird magical under beings!) These signs adorn Le Cirque Arcanus (the Circus Arcanus), the night circus Credence finds himself joining on his journey to discover his birth family.
The circus lands in Paris in the year 1927 and it brings all manner of fantastical creatures. “Le Demon of L’eau Japonais” marks the Kappa water demon featured in the festivities for the wizarding crowd, while Skender, the cruel owner and Ringmaster of the circus, captured a Zouwu, a large feline beast that’s native to China, as another attraction. The scars marking the creature’s face denote the abuse it suffered. (Newt probably won’t be receptive to that.)
Maledictus (Claudia Kim) is the star attraction of the Circus Arcana. As the carrier of a blood curse, she’s destined to transform permanently into a beast and Skender is eager to exploit her abilities for entertainment. Maledictus finds a friend in the circus’ menial new-hire, Credence, and they both escape.
Historic Landmarks
Rue de Montmorency: Non-magique recognize the name as a street in Paris’ Le Marais quarter. Witches and wizards, however, know this as the residence of Nicolas Flamel, a noted alchemist and the maker of the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Flamel, played in The Crimes of Grindelwald by Brontis Jodorowsky, is approximately 600 years old when Scamander and his no-maj buddy Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) encounter him at his Paris dwelling. Of course, Flamel already knows they’re coming, since he’s such a close friend of Albus Dumbledore.
Pere Lachaise Cemetery: Some of the most famous people in France’s history are buried here: Jim Morrison, Voltaire, and — a name familiar to wizard kind — Lestrange. It’s here, in an amphitheater below this historic landmark filled with tombstones for renown wizard and non-magique families, that Gellert Grindelwald has assembled magic folk to preach his case.
The dark wizard and current holder of the Elder Wand is in Paris “hiding in plain sight,” Foley says. Grindelwald’s new base of operations is in the city of love, after escaping MACUSA custody, and Scamander is now headed there on special assignment from Dumbledore himself.
