Fantastic Beasts star Jessica WIlliams said she modelled her character oround Venus and Serena Williams.
Venus and Serena Williams have inspired an entire generation of young and aspiring tennis players over the course of their careers. However, even the 23-time Grand Slam champion would not have anticipated being the role model for the character of a wizard in the Harry Potter universe,
And yet, according to Jessica Williams, the American actress who plays Eulalie “Lally” Hicks in the latest installment of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, said shemodeledd her character’s wand work after both Venus and Serena Williams.
Speaking to Collider in her latest interview, Jessica Williams said she was excited about playing a headstrong character before adding that she found inspiration from the champion tennis duo.
“I’m so excited about my character,” Jessica Williams said. “I think she’s really strong and really capable. She’s really good at defensive magic and she has some really cool, badass sequences in this movie that I’m so excited for everyone to see. I modeled a lot of her wand work after Serena and Venus Williams. I like that she does this really cool, strong magic like she really means it.”“Eulalie is really heart-driven and I think she’s really good at seeing at the heart of people,” she continued. “And I think Dumbledore recruits her because he knows that about her. And I think she’s somebody you can always depend on to do what’s good and what’s right.”
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third installment in the franchise, was released in movie theaters in UK and India on April 8 and will hit the big screens in the US on April 15.
Venus and Serena Williams continue to slide down the WTA rankings
Venus (L) and Serena Williams
Serena Williams last played a competitive match at the 2021 Wimbledon Championships, where she was forced to retire from her opening-round encounter against Aliaksandra Sasnovich after suffering a foot injury.
The American’s absence from the WTA tour has taken a toll on her ranking. She recently fell out of the top-200 after dropping the points she earned during her semifinal run at the 2021 Australian Open and is now ranked at No. 243.
Venus Williams, meanwhile, has not played since losing to Hsieh Su-wei at the Chicago Women’s Open back in August last year. She has dropped all the way down to No. 499 in the world.
