By Production of the second season of Netflix’s fantasy flagship The Witcher starring Henry Cavill is moving forward. The team, led by showrunner Lauren Hissrich has completed one block of filming and is currently busy doing location shoots all over Northern England.
The rapid pace the production is currently moving at, kept us very busy in the last few weeks, as there were new developments almost every day. Time for a news update covering some smaller tidbits that didn’t make it into one of our news reports, starting with costumes…
A closer look at costume designer Lucinda Wright’s work
One of the most important new faces on board of The Witcher season two is costume designer Lucinda Wright who took over from Tim Aslam after season one. We have already seen a few of her costumes up close, such as Geralt’s new witcher armor, Ciri’s training outfit and most recently Yennefer in an elegant black dress. While costumes are always a matter of taste, we really liked what we’ve seen so far.
You may also remember, that we released lots of pictures from the set back in February, showing a camp full of elves led by season one’s Filavandrel (Tom Canton) and newcomer Francesca Findabair (Mecia Simson). What impressed us most was the variety of the elven costumes. There were rich- and poorly garbed elves, soldiers clad in scale-armor, scouts wearing lighter attire, and elven women in long earth-colored dresses.
Months later, we found what looks like two elven elders on horseback. We were able to confirm that the extras playing them were present at the camp set in February.
The extras don’t seem to wear any ear prosthetics, indicating that they will most likely appear in a background capacity only. It’s reassuring that even background costume-parts, such as the intricate saddle and dignified robes shown above received an extraordinary level of detail. We can’t wait to see what Lucinda and her team have in store for the more important elven characters, especially Francesca Findabair, the always regal Daisy of the Vallies.
New audition video highlights elven history in season two
We’re not quite done with the elves news yet as we found a new audition video for an Aen Seidhe Elf. This comes courtesy of actress Safron Beck, who uploaded the casting tape on vimeo. It’s a very short video touching mostly on the glorious past of the elves: The immigration that brought them to the Continent, the cities and palaces they built in their heyday, and the wars that almost cost them everything. As she addresses her dialogue partner as ‘Gwynbleidd’, the elven name for ‘White Wolf’, we know she is talking to Geralt of Rivia.
Keep in mind that all the usual disclaimers for audition videos apply. If previous examples are anything to go by, the actress likely didn’t get the part in the end. Also don’t expect to find this conversation in the show, as the lines were likely written for the audition only. We’ve included the transcription below in case the video is taken down.
Geralt: I remember when your race travelled from world to world without complication
Aen Seidhe Elf: Yes…
Geralt: Two hundred and fifty thousand years ago.
Aen Seidhe Elf: The Great Immigration. The Separation. My Aen Seidhe’s created great cities, palaces made out of stone. Many of these settlements have been destroyed, altered or occupied by humans. Aen Elle and Aen Seidhe, my species, my race… will rise again. Gwynbleidd. Will you join us?
Two actresses join the cast
It’s high time we heard more about casting. Characters like the arch-spy Sigismund Dijkstra, the vicious sorcerer Rience, or Queen Meve of Lyria and Rivia have all been confirmed to appear in season two, yet Netflix hasn’t announced them yet. While we wait for the big fishes, here are two cast additions we stumbled upon recently.
Julianna Kurokawa (Twisted Sobriety, Brave New World) will play an original character called Michela in one or more episodes directed by Sarah O’Gorman (episodes three and four). Kurokawa is of Japanese, British and Egyptian descent and moderately tall, making her a candidate for an elf.
Meanwhile, model and actress Zina Wheater (The Nevers, Black Widow) will play the role of High Consular. While we aren’t quite sure what that actually means, she has recently exchanged follows with several mage actors, such as MyAnna Buring (Tissaia), Mahesh Jadu (Vilgefortz), and Royce Pierreson (Istredd), indicating that this might be a position affiliated with Aretuza.
That concludes our update of minor tidings from the Continent. Don’t want to miss any witcher news? You can keep track of all the big and small developments on our twitter.
I like the actress
girls looks lovely – each one of them actually could pull off the most beautiful woman in the world, would love to see them. Great point about Dijkstra – why we haven’t heard about it still bothers me.
unfortunatelly elves look like season 1, cheap, amateur, boring. I would have never thought they are descendants from great empire, they look like african immigrants
idiot they should look like „immigrants“ they dont have much …
Zina = Rita?
Kudoz to Lucinda for the costumes. The rest, unfortunately, looks as bad as in Season 1. Every line, however casual, will again be uttered with such pregnancy as if the speaker was just about to kick the bucket.
Group scenes will again be arranged by herding all extras together and ordering them to “busy about your business, just don’t look to the camera”. The good scenes, because in the bad ones they just stand there with blank faces, like dryads in Brokilon.
And we will probably again see cocky midgets playing mighty dwarfs. I love midgets, Dinklage is worth five Oscars, but really? Fearsome, bulky dwarves?
Is it so hard to just look at what Peter Jackson did and have a go?
I’m so concerned that Philippa will be cut from the show. She is such a big and important character. But the more time passes and nothing is said about her, the more I lose hope that she’s on the show