Ever since Harry began his journey, we’ve been told that “The wand chooses the wizard.” But, on set of the Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them movie, the actors got to design their characters’ wands themselves.

“I sort of assumed that I would have a wand sort of plopped in my hand,” Eddie Redmayne tells Entertainment Weekly. But when he found out he got to choose the wand for the main character, Newt Scamander, he put a lot of thought into the design.

“These amazing props designers come, and then you have really a quite intricate discussion with [director] David Yates about what qualities Newt has,” Eddie continued. He wanted Newt’s wand to match his personality, to be a reflection of who he was. Eddie didn’t want the wand to be too complex of a design, Newt isn’t a “showy guy”. But he did want the audience to be able to see the history in it, all that it’s been through, with scratches and burn marks up and down the ash wood.

But for the handle, they were sort of talking about whether it should be horn or leather, and I didn’t like the idea of like animal products being used, given that he’s a zoologist. So in the end, they came up with this idea of sand shell… and it has a slightly mother-of-pearly feel. So we had all these discussions and went back and forth with designs, and when the thing arrived I was pretty excited. My inner 9-year-old was having a disco, and then I was actually presented with it!”

Read the full interview with Eddie Redmayne here! Be sure to catch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in theaters November 18!