Fantastic Beasts' Jessica Williams Dishes On Perfecting Eulalie's Voice

The "Fantastic Beasts" franchise still appears to be sort of up in the air after the release of "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" in 2022 (via Variety). Initially, the plan for the prequel series that focuses on the adventures of magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) within the Wizarding World was supposed to be a total of five movies (via Twitter). Then, after a global pandemic arrived along with Johnny Depp's firing as Gellert Grindelwald due to legal troubles with ex-wife Amber Heard (via Instagram), "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" looked like it might never happen. Not to mention, problems were already in place before that, as the second movie in the series, "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald," received a notably poor reception from fans and critics (via Rotten Tomatoes).

However, "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" seemed to resonate with fans this time around, although critics held similar disapproval. The movie featured a few new characters as well, including Oliver Masucci's Anton Vogel and, of course, Jessica Williams' Eulalie 'Lally' Hicks, who we had previously seen for a brief moment in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald." Her character proves to be essential as part of Dumbledore's first army and is the one to convince Jacob (Dan Fogler) to once again come on an adventure.

Aside from her formidable intellect and skills as a witch, Lally does have a very specific voice and articulation. Williams recently revealed how and why this is the case for her character during the movie.

During an interview with The Nerds of Color for promotion of "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore," Eulalie 'Lally' Hicks actress Jessica Williams revealed that there was a lot of thought behind her character's voice and articulation. Williams explained that she drew from famous jazz pianist Hazel Scott and writer James Baldwin to reflect just how well-read and educated Lally is. "Lally was born in Harlem, around you know, like, 1915 loosely, I want to say," Williams noted. "I worked with this really, really amazing dialect coach for many, many, many months before we started this film and we drew a lot of inspiration from Hazel Scott, who was this really amazing African-American pianist ... We drew some inflections from James Baldwin," she said.

Williams continued that she and her dialect coach specifically studied Black orators that had likely attended boarding school because Lally would've been at Ilvermorny (the American school for the magically inclined) since she was very young, staying there and becoming a professor afterward. Williams also explained that she read a lot of Oscar Wilde as well.

With the recent cancellations and shake-up at Warner Bros. Discovery (via TVLine), it will be interesting to see if fans will watch Lally again in the future of the "Fantastic Beasts" franchise.