It was a pretty bewildering time,” says Katherine Waterston – hovering, for a moment, in the memory of 2016. It was a moment of transition for the American actor: after a breakthrough performance in the sativa haze of Paul Thomas Anderson’s hippy-death daydream Inherent Vice, Waterston had secured what remains her biggest mainstream role – a lead part in the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. “Everybody else up for that part were huge stars; I never thought I was going to get it,” she says. “Honestly, it was hard to catch up with the rate at which my life had changed at that time. I really didn’t know what I was doing in a big franchise.”
Today, it’s hard to imagine Waterston feeling so ill-suited to the limelight. It may be that the mise en scene is to blame: appropriately glammed-up for a run of video interviews this afternoon, the 44-year-old sits a few feet away from me in a central London hotel room, lights and cameras aimed squarely at her face. Around us a team of technical hands and publicists form a human skirting board. The setup, she admits, is “terrifying – but then you realise they’re not out to get you and it’s not so bad”. I’m pretty sure this is just for my benefit: she seems right at home.
