Fantastic Beasts: Queenie actor Alison Sudol defends controversial Crimes of Grindelwald twist

Alison Sudol, who plays Queenie Goldstein in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, has defended the twist surrounding her character.

Having fallen in love with muggle (or no-maj, as is used in America) Jacob Kowolski (Dan Fogler), Queenie is faced with the anguish of knowing her relationship is deemed illegal by American wizarding law.

This leaves her vulnerable to Gellert Gindelwald (Johnny Depp), who converts her to his cause with promises that she'll finally be able to be with Jacob without fear of persecution.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Sudol said: "I was like, wait, how did this happen? It took a long time in my imagination to even begin to understand. And throughout the course of the film, to just begin to reconcile who she was in the beginning with the choices that she makes and realise she isn’t a different person she’s just abandoned in a really untenable circumstance."

“I feel like in some ways she’s too there and that’s part of the problem. She’s tapping into all human beings at all times and that’s a lot for one person to hold and everybody closest to her is always going, ‘Don’t read my mind.’ So she has a huge power and yet is made to feel like she’s nothing and that’s bad."

"That could make anyone feel crazy. And women historically have this huge intuition and have been punished for that intuition forever. How many women have been in a mental institution because they’ve been called crazy when they’re just not allowed to be honest or be who they are?”

However, although the film ends with Queenie officially pledging her allegiance to Grindelwald, Sudol doesn't believe the character's turned to the dark side.

"I still believe in her heart of hearts she’s going over to fight what she believes in,” she said. “Grindelwald is saying, ‘we’re creating a different world’ and the world that she is in is broken. I don’t believe she’s turning evil. It’s more like she’s trying to find somebody who is giving her an option. He’s manipulating her but he’s manipulating everybody. He even did that with Dumbledore.”

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