1st Look of Eddie Redmayne in Harry Potter Prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

His name is Newt Scamander, and he's a wizard. He's also being played by Oscar-winner Eddie Redymane in J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a prequel of sorts to her epic Harry Potter series. Redmayne's on the cover of Entertainment Weekly's upcoming issue, which gets a first look at his 1920s era wizard and some very intriguing plot details. This is Rowling's first time as a screenwriter, and from the nuggets EW unearthed, this sounds like a very compelling way to continue inhabiting the Wizarding world from a totally new vantage—America.

EW reports that Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander is a world-famous magizoologist (someone who studies magical creatures), and in Fantastic Beasts he embarks on an adventure in 1926 New York. Scamander ends up in the "majestic art deco-influenced Magical Congress of the United States of America (or MACUSA), which is the American version of the Ministry of Magic that’s housed inside the Woolworth Building in the film." Redmayne's co-stars include Katherine Waterston (Steve Jobs), Colin Farrell (True Detective) and Samantha Morton (Minority Report), and the director is longtime Potter alum, David Yates, who directed four Potter films, including the two-part final installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Potter-heads, Rowling fans, Redmayne fans and people who just like fully realized and inhabited fantasy worlds—Fantastic Beasts will be found in your local movie theater next November.