Katherine Waterston cast in Harry Potter spin-off

Katherine Waterston has been cast as the female lead alongside Eddie Redmayne in the ‘Harry Potter’ spin-off ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’.

Katherine Waterston

Katherine Waterston has been cast as the female lead in the ‘Harry Potter’ spin-off movie.

The 35-year-old actress – who featured in the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed movie Inherent Vice last year – is set to star in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them alongside Oscar-winning performer Eddie Redmayne.

Katherine will appear in the role of a witch in the much-anticipated movie, which is set in New York around 70 years before the story of Harry begins and is to be directed by David Yates, who also helmed the last four movies in the ‘Harry Potter‘ franchise.

Earlier this month, ‘Harry Potter’ creator J.K. Rowling hinted an American version of Hogwarts will feature in ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them‘.

The best-selling author is currently writing the screenplay for the spin-off movie and she suggested an American wizarding school may be featured in the movie.

In a Q&A session on Twitter, she was asked the name of the “US school” and replied: “That information will be revealed in due course.”

Rowling explained her delight of Waterston’s casting on her Twitter feed.

I couldn’t be happier with our Tina: Katherine Waterston! #FantasticBeasts https://t.co/VSTUdGYUrF

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 15, 2015

Here’s the full book synopsis courtesy of Amazon:

As featured in the first year set texts reading list in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an extensive introduction to the magical beasts that exist in the magical, non-Muggle world. Some of the animals featured in the A-Z you will have already met in the existing Harry Potter books: for example Hippogriff, Flobberworm, Kappa – others you certainly won’t: read on to find out exactly what a Chizpurfle is, or why one should always beware of the sinister Lethifold …As Albus Dumbledore says in his introduction, this set text book by Newt Scamander has given the perfect grounding to many a Hogwarts student. It will be helpful to all Muggles out there too …On reading the book you will also find that Harry, Ron and (in one instance) Hermione – couldn’t resist grafittiing the book, and adding their own personal hand-written opinions.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is scheduled for release in November 2016.