Oh sweet ginger prince! What a coup this is for you: after weeks of glorious speculation it has been confirmed at long last that everyone’s favorite redheaded Stephen Hawking has been cast as Newt Scamander in the next great wizarding adaptation from the mind of J.K. Rowling, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

For those not in the know — and how dare you but we’ll allow it just this once — Newt Scamander was merely a mention in the Harry Potter series for his work writing the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry textbook, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Considered the Wizarding World’s most preeminent magizoologist — that’s zoologist for magical animals — who spent a good portion of his travels in the states, documenting and interacting with a myriad of magicanimals. And you know what’s extra cool? Dumbledore would have been Scamander’s professor and Sirius Black’s great-great-grandfather would have been headmaster at the time, which means we’re in for more than a few hat-tips to the series that came 70 years after the fact.

Now all we need is to get the ball rolling on casting the secondary characters and daydream about just how magical New York in the 1920s is going to be. After all, it was a time filled with art deco and opulence galore as directed by David Yates — don’t you want to watch it for forever?

What do you think of the casting? Excited for more Redmayne and magic? Who would you dream-cast for the rest of the film? Let us hear it in the comments.

HT: The Wrap

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Alicia Lutes is the Associate Editor of The Nerdist. Find her on the Tweet Machine @alicialutes.