By In August, Netflix resumed filming the second season of The Witcher, starring Henry Cavill. Though season two has already found its Vesemir, Francesca, Nivellen, Lambert, Lydia and Coen, some major roles are yet to be revealed. These include the replacement of the witcher Eskel, characters such as Dijkstra or Voleth Meir, as well as a number of others.
Redanian Intelligence has now uncovered one of them: Jacob Fenn. In the books, Fenn is physically disabled and bound to a wheel chair, and it appears that Netflix is looking to cast an actor with a similar disability for the role.
After finding the audition on Vimeo, we were able to confirm with our sources that Jacob Fenn will indeed be included in season two, alongside his partner Codringher. Together, Codringher and Fenn lead a law firm and detective agency widely known for their investigative skills throughout the Northern Realms. In the novels, they help Geralt identify his enemies in an early sequence of Time of Contempt. How Codringher and Fenn will factor in the second season of the Netflix series remains to be seen.
In addition to the tape by actor Ian Jay (who previously portrayed one of the Joker’s henchmen in The Dark Knight), we have also identified another possible candidate for the role in Kevin Davids. Read on for all the details.
Jacob Fenn audition transcript
For the audition, the names Codringher and Fenn are replaced with code-names (as is customary for the series). In this case, the name “Cobb” appears to be used in place of Codringher, “Carthage” clearly stands for Cintra, and “Ethan” appears to be a codename for Emhyr var Emreis, the Emperor of Nilfgaard. Keep in mind that casting lines for The Witcher are not taken from the real scripts, but written specifically for the auditions, so chances are you will not see this exact scene in the show. Nevertheless, some details mentioned could help us guessing Fenn’s role in season two. We’ve transcribed the scene below.
“Cobb“: Some kings build statues to their vanity. Perhaps Ethan collects saracens and he could want the girl to have a legitimate claim to Carthage [to or related facts].
Fenn: Yes Cobby it’s probably pure coincidence that Ethan wants the princess who has a secret power to shut her saracens and has a claim to the throne he has already taken by force. Hm yeah.
“Cobb“: Funny, I was just thinking, you know what would help find answers faster? Your sarcasm. There’s a sequence that keeps coming up in the genealogy of courts, but I’ve never heard of it.
Fenn: Spell it!
“Cobb“: [speaking in Hen Linge, the Elven language]. Think it’s a misnomer.
Fenn (mumbles): Hang on, hang on. Hah! And when the men proved hostile, bringing death and destruction, multiplying and infesting their lands, the natives built a weapon to destroy them. (repeating the words in Hen Linge again). It’s a misinterpretation. They didn’t build a weapon, they built a warrior.
Who will be cast as Fenn?
Though we quite enjoyed Ian Jay’s audition for the Fenn, The Witcher‘s casting team must be auditioning dozens of candidates. We have not yet discovered who was selected for the role, but we have a strong suspicion that British actor Kevin Davids (Coronation Street) has auditioned as well, based on the tweet from his agency shown above. We will be keeping an eye out for other actors as well.
Today’s news should be a welcome surprise for fans of Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels, as Codringher and Fenn’s scenes (though very brief) are of major significance to the story and the lore. With Codringher and Fenn joining the previously revealed Ithlinne, we’re quite excited to see the lore of the Continent deepen in The Witcher season two.
Very interesting but isn’t too soon for the characters to appear? Will they adapt part of Time of Contempt as well? Are 8 episode enough to tell the story right? I hope they do the books justice because the books and its characters are phenomenal.
P.S. Maybe they tell the story differently. Lauren Hissrich said we’ll have flashback and flashforwards. Lets see. Right now I’m exciteed to see Geralt in my screen but I’m little worried about the rest of the storylines.
I think it’s a bit too soon as well. They alreayd have enormous amount of material for second season (also adding all their fanfictiony invented stuff and a lot of it according to the rumors) plus Grain of Truth put in with the entirety of Blood of Elves novel to adapt, I don’t know how they are going to fit all this into second season with only 8 episodes, it may mean the season will be incredibly rushed and overloaded. I would have preferred if they sticked to one novel per season, with longer novels taking even up to two seasons and limit their own inventions (they usually are crap anyway, judging from ‘original’ content in first season was absolute rubbish).
I agree. I wish they would spent more time in the main characters’ relationships and journey together and not to rush things so much or introduce all the characters at once. I didn’t hate s1, I love it and first seasons are mostly rushed becuase they have so much thing to do but now I wish they toned down the pace a little. Show us the connections between the characters and less invented stuff.
Tbh I prefer if they don’t adapt parts of Time of Contempt yet, I want them to take their time with blood of elves and also the many stories they have from s1 but we’ll see what they have in mind. Right now most of the reports form redanian intelligence reveal interestig storylines for s2 (Kaer Morhen being attacked, new monsters, the deathless mother character, the prophecy etc) but they are too much I’m afraid. I hope s2 will not not rushed. Plus they have to develop the relationships between Geralt-Ciri, Ciri-Yen and Geralt/Yennefer. I hope they can manage it.