Although the Fantastic Beasts movies take place more than half a century before the Harry Potter film series, thanks to wizards and witches having a longer life expectancy than Muggles/No-Majs/whatever you want to call them, some of the older Harry Potter characters can be showcased in their spryer years. For Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, we'll be seeing be seeing younger versions of Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall, and with three more Fantastic Beasts movies still to come, star Eddie Redmayne is hoping that Rubeus Hagrid can eventually be included. As the actor put it to CinemaBlend:
Hagrid. And I'm secretly hoping that at some wonderful point, maybe if I say it enough times to J.K. Rowling, like a little mini Hagrid might arrive.
Eddie Redmayne expressed interest in seeing a tween/teen Hagrid to CinemaBlend's own Eric Eisenberg during the Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald junket. Like Dumbledore and McGonagall, Hagrid was one of the most important characters in the original Harry Potter stories, so I can't imagine that the fans would be eager to see him as a lad. And Redmayne isn't the only member of the Fantastic Beasts cast interested in seeing "mini Hagrid" appear in the future, as Katherine Waterston is also on board with the idea, saying:
Katherine Waterston: In the timeline, he could be a kid.Eddie Redmayne: He probably could. I haven't actually gone and... he's pretty old.Waterston: I think it could work!
It's worth noting that currently in the Fantastic Beasts timeline, it would be impossible to include Hagrid. It was noted in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (the book), which takes place in 1993, that Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts 50 years earlier during his third year. That puts him at around 13-14 years old in 1943, meaning he was born in 1928.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald takes place in 1927, so Hagrid hasn't even been born yet. Then again, since including McGonagall in The Crimes of Grindelwald has apparently broken canon, if J.K. Rowling decides she wants Hagrid to appear in a Fantastic Beasts sequel, maybe she could alter his age as well.
You can listen to Eddie Redmayne and Katherine Waterston talk out the prospects of seeing Hagrid in the Fantastic Beasts film series in the clip below.
Fortunately for Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston and anyone else interested in Hagrid popping up in a Fantastic Beasts movie, there's still plenty of time to make that happen, even without making changing the character's birthdate. J.K. Rowling previously revealed that the film series will span 19 years, from Newt Scamander's adventure in New York City in 1926 to when Dumbledore defeated Gellert Grindelwald in 1945. So if Fantastic Beasts 3 or Fantastic Beasts 4 are set in the late 1930s or early 1940s, then it would be easy enough to peek in on Hagrid during his time as a Hogwarts student.
For now, though, our attention is turned to Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, which follows Albus Dumbledore enlisting Newt Scamander to help capture the recently-escaped Gellert Grindelwald, who is gathering followers to help him achieve his vision of wizards and witches ruling over non-magical beings. The sequel will work its magic in theaters on November 16, and if you want to learn what else is being released before the year is over, check out our 2018 release schedule.
