If you’re a cast member of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, you have to remember the names of a ton of magical creatures: occamy, bowtruckle, nifflers… the list goes on.
However, when the fantastic beast in question is drawn from real-life folklore — like the zouwu or qilin, both of which come from Chinese mythology — it’s especially important that you get the pronunciations right.
Eddie Redmayne, who plays magizoologist Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, admitted in a video interview with Mashable that there have been times when he and the cast have mispronounced the names of these creatures for the duration of filming.
“We’ve gone through creatures that are actual real mythological creatures and we’ve mispronounced them the entire way through the movie,” he said. “So we’ve had to go back and loop in after the event and re-put their voices on.”
The zouwu was one example of this. “I succeeded in, I think, mispronouncing it, but then it transpired there were several interpretations of how to pronounce it,” said Redmayne. “And so I’m not sure I ever quite got it right.”
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is now in theaters.
