Yahoo Movies Dumbledore's sexuality will be 'clear' in 'Fantastic Beasts 2', says director David Yates
It will be ‘clear’ to viewers that Professor Dumbledore is gay in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, director David Yates has clarified.
Yates’ comments, in a new Empire magazine interview and reported by Telegraph, were in response an previous interview with the filmmaker that suggested the Harry Potter spin-off would not address Dumbledore’s sexuality.
“In that earlier interview [with Entertainment Weekly], I didn’t say Dumbledore’s not gay. He is,” Yates tells Empire.
“This part of this huge narrative that Jo is creating doesn’t focus on his sexuality, but we’re not airbrushing or hiding it.”
JK Rowling, the writer of the Harry Potter novels and the Fantastic Beasts films, first revealed Dumbledore to be a gay man in 2007 during a public appearance at Carnegie Hall.
“I always thought of Dumbledore as gay. Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was.” – JK Rowling, 2007.
Grindlewald, played by Johnny Depp but in flashback scenes by Jamie Campbell Bower, is Dumbledore’s adversary in the Fantastic Beasts films, but the pair’s history goes way back, transcending a simple friendship.
Yates clarifies that the Hogwarts professor, played in Crimes of Grindelwald by Jude Law, is “not out as a gay man in this film”, his sexuality would be clear for viewers to interpret.
“A couple of scenes we shot are very sensual moments of him and the young Grindelwald,” Yates says.
“The story [of their romance] isn’t there in this particular movie but it’s clear in what you see… that he is gay.”
“[The Crimes of Grindelwald] is about other things, fundamentally, but the story of Grindelwald and Dumbledore, going forward, that is the story.”
Back in February, 2018, when pressed on whether Crimes of Grindelwald would address Dumbledore’s sexuality, Yates responded “Not explicitly.”
“But I think all the fans are aware of that. He had a very intense relationship with Grindelwald when they were young men. They fell in love with each other’s ideas, and ideology and each other.”
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is out worldwide in 2D and 3D in select theatres and IMAX on November 16, 2018. Watch the latest trailer below.
Read more
Depp’s GQ cover riles fans
Fantastic Beasts set visit report
Why fans are crazy about Nagini
