In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Alison Sudol talks about her character, Queenie, in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.

In the film, newcomer Alison Sudol plays the free-spirited Queenie Goldstein, who works a menial desk job at the Magical Congress of the United States of America, in the same department as her sister, Tina (Katherine Waterston). Like a some famous dark wizards such as Salazar Slytherin, she’s a Legilimens — a mind reader. But Queenie’s mind reading is rather different than the way we’ve seen the talent portrayed in the Harry Potter tales. When Severus Snape taught Occlumency to Harry, he used Legilimency like an attacking spell, attempting to breach a resisting mind. But Queenie is more like an antenna, always turned on, picking up the thoughts and feelings of everybody around her.

“She’s basically a complete and utter magical empath,” Sudol tells EW. “She’s able to read people — so it’s not just reading somebody’s thoughts. She’s can read into someone’s story, she can see people’s goals. And so even though she’s able to do magic with her wand, a lot of her magic is actually internal, which makes her a different type of wizard or witch. And she’s incredibly fun, playful, joyful, and free-spirited, kind and wise, and also has a sort of stillness about her because she’s always tuning into people, so she’s quite an interesting character to play — very vivacious and lively, yet very centered and aware.”