The Witcher casts Philippa Eilhart

37 comments

Fans are eagerly awaiting the upcoming second season of The Witcher that is currently in its final stages of filming at Arborfield studios. There’s a lot to look forward to from new visual effects, places, and not least a veritable stream of interesting new characters. Out of all the people that Geralt (Henry Cavill), Ciri (Freya Allan) and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) will meet in the second season, there is perhaps one character that the fandom is most anxiously waiting for and today we can finally announce the good news.


We’ve just learned that actress Cassie Clare will play the sorceress Philippa Eilhart in season two of The Witcher. Yes you heard that right. After what feels like an eternity of silence, we finally have confirmation on this iconic and very important character.

Cassie Clare, Photo credits: Michael Wharley

Cassie Clare started her career as a singer and dancer, joining the National Youth Theatre and starring in various Musicals. In recent years, she has begun to leave her mark in the television industry as well with appearances in shows such as The Bisexual, Ransom, and Brave New World. We’ll leave her showreel below so you can get an idea of her acting skills:

Philippa Eilhart is well known to fans of the books and the games as one of the most brilliant and powerful sorceresses on the Continent. One of the few mages to have mastered the art of polymorphy, she is able to transform into an owl at will. Despite her youthful appearance she is at least 300 years old in the books (according to Jaskier’s estimations). And last but not least, she is also beloved as an iconic LGBT character, having ‘lost her taste for men some time ago’. While we don’t know how big her role in season two will be, we cannot stress how excited we are to see her on screen later this year.


Well what are your thoughts? Leave them below or on our Twitter page and stay tuned with Redanian Intelligence for all things Witcher.

37 comments on “The Witcher casts Philippa Eilhart”

  1. The owl lesbian is here! She’s such a bitch and I love her so much! Excited to see what the actress brings to the character

    1. She is not lesbian, she is bi, she used to be with dijkstra, you can’t “loose” taste in a gender, thats not how Sexuality works

      1. ‘Having lost her taste for men some time ago’

        That’s literally how she is described in the books by Marti Södergren, hence the quotation marks.

    2. Race swap…and this, ladies and gentlemen, is why, though I am an uber fan of The Witcher games and have read all novels 2x, I have not, nor will I, watch the Netflix show. I cancelled Netflix due to their intersectionality cultism and I will never subscribe again (lest the pendulum swing back to it being okay to portray the race of characters with a similar race actor). To those of you laughing this off…imagine if it were the other way around (or you were actually a fan bf the show came stampeding out, diversity in full stunning braveness!)

      1. You’re asking all of us laughing at you to “imagine”. We don’t need to imagine it because white people have been casting themselves as they please for as long as movies have existed. If you’re so mad then grab a tub of pop corn and put on Prince of Persia or Dragon Ball Z to dry your tears.

      1. It’s based on germanic/norse mythology with slavic elements, suddenly every other character is of color, go figure what this is about.

    1. Why of course it is! 🙂 🙂 After all she is supposed to be a Nordling, she lives in the north like most of the other characters in books :). You know, people with European features?

  2. Finally!!! She looks great for the role & I can’t wait to see her on screen. S2 looks great when it comes to casting, I just hope they stay closer to the books in terms of the main trio relationships aka to give them more time together to build their relationships. Other than that one worry, I’m very excited by everything I hear.

    1. In the first photo are some similarities, but then in others it goes downhill. Next to Dijkstra she will be disproportionate even more. And I really don’t see any above-average acting performance on the clip.

  3. “beloved as an iconic LGBT character” Yeah…. Hopefully, showrunners will aslo remember that she is cold heartless monster, that was willing to sacrficie thousands upon thousands for her personal gains.

  4. Great news! I was worried they would blend her character with another sorceress and I’m happy that’s not the case. She’s such an iconic character and the actress looks perfect for the part.

    Judging by the info we have so far for s2 it looks very promising and it seems Lauren Hissrich took some of the criticism for s1 and fixed some thinks. If that’s true, I hope s2 emphasize more on the relationship between Geralt, Yen and Ciri. We need to see them becoming a family.

  5. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
    of course they had to do that and of course they had to release it by the end of season to avoid fans rage. you read it first here, this ship will sink, linear storyline is only going to amplify the level of craftsmanship from the writers and producers. goodbye goodnight

    1. It seems that the main selection criterion was that the actress was as similar in weight as possible to the largest species of owl 🙂

  6. Great choice! I can already imagine her in my head as Philippa. I know some people are mad but it’s fantasy and it’s fiction. S2 casting looks fantastic. The witchers, the sorceresses, Dijkstra… I can’t wait. ⚔️ 🐺 🦄

  7. Looks nothing like book character. Check.

    Filmography full of Z-tier movies. Check.

    ‘LGBT’ character and the fact that she ‘lost her taste for men’ seems to be of high relevance in the article. Check.

    Actress hired almost a year after shooting began, even if the character is important. Check.

    Yup, definitely sounds like Hissrich’s Witcher to me.
    Thank god lotr made in early 2000s, otherwise the cast would be disastrous like this.

  8. Its all going wrong in Netflix. Fantasy world has some fundaments, that need to be followed (yes even fantasy, like every genre has some fundamental rules). Just look at Game of Thrones. There are also many different races, BUT people in Westeros are white, Pentos or Dorne are brown (like Spanish or Italian) and more west in desert is mix with black and arabian look people. But what Netflix is doing wrong (permanently and purposely) is mixing all races and religions together and everywhere on the map, and that is stupid. It will never work in real world, and even in fantasy world…why ? Just think for a second.. Withcer world is driven by racism, where people hate Elves just because of their pointy ears, but then you see black guy with white guys siiting and drinking, or heist together, and your brain is like…wow so they are killing each other because o ears, but when they look totally different (black vs white for example), racism is gone, suddenly…everybody is allright with this, no problem..but you have pointy ears ? Big problem, wars etc…Its stupid, and i cannot enjoy fantasy with stupid, fundamental problems like this… And everything that you can say is..but in the book nobody wrote that she, he is white. Is theis really best you can argue ? Really ? Dryads are descibed as green skin and they hate metal…and in the show, they look like tribe from Africa, with metal clothes and weapons…WTF ? There is race swaping, and we all now that. Sapkowski never wrote about skin color of most characters, becaus the were white, automaticlly, if some other, special race occued, he wrote about skin color (like he wrote that Dryads are green, Zerikkans are brown etc…but every other characters..why even wrote they are white ? When its known ?

    1. The famous italien and spanish of dorne… Black people in Got are coming from the summer isles and the arabian are clarly the dorne people,for the italian look Pentos

  9. I’m loving almost all the casting news so far. Much better than s1 imo, which was also great with few minor exceptions, but I believe that’s more on the writing than the actors. But s2 casting seems on point. Especially the witchers and the sorceresses. I hope s2 will be fantastic and will do justice to the books.

  10. Well…I actually was hoping the showrunners would stay true to their alleged diversity commitment and cast an actress of Chinese or similar Asian background. Even more so as there is some supply of very talented British actresses fitting that profile. But now it is clear that the showrunners just want to appease the BPoC community even while quite likely that is not the major part of the viewership. A decision purely based on political correctness within an US American political discussion, disregarding how that might be viewed at in other parts of the world, like the country where the story originates (Poland) or the place where it is set in (a fictional medieval Europe). Not to mention the very noticeable exclusion of actors with an East Asian origin, or natural white skinned redheads, for that matter. I cannot help but think that the claim of diversity surrounding the casting is somewhat biased and hypocritical. The only positive thing I see here is that the character is not being skipped or combined with another one.

    1. Even from a US point of view, the casting is not inclusive. According to Wikipedia, the fraction of the Black population (African ethnicity) in the US is around 13%. The fraction of Latino-Hispanic population is over 16%. Actors of Latino-Hispanic ethnicity are remarkably absent from the cast. When I read the books, I always thought of Philippa as a southern Italian type of person, a kind of homage to Magica DeSpell or to Morticia Addams. So why not cast her in that way and represent also the Latino-Hispanic people. Seems that is not the idea of diversity that is applied here. Most of the important recurring mages on the show are now being portrayed by people of color – Yennefer, Philippa, Triss, Fringilla, Francesca, Vilgefortz. I am not saying this is a bad thing, and it may very well work for the series, but it can hardly be said to be inclusive from the perspective of the US.

  11. Its a TV show. Some people are so easily offended…perhaps even more than the stereotypical ‘woke’ person. Pretty funny when you think about it..

  12. The blackwashing continues. It’s quiet sad because one of the main points is that the world is on one hand very (eastern)-european and there is a conflict between what is perceived “normal” and what is not. So it’s not just that characters change their ethnicity, the world itself is depicted in a pretty wrong way, because it’s just not logical that a society full of prejudice has suddenly no issue with a fully mixed society. It’s absurd.

    1. You are pointing at an interesting inconsistency. In the Witcher World, the (mainly white) population are throwing stones at the Witcher (who is white) because he is a „freak“, and they hunt down Elves (so far mostly white in show, with one exception) because they are „different“. Now the audience should be convinced that the (mainly white) people in this world find people of color perfectly acceptable and not even worth mentioning. That is truly a fantastic world. The TV world.

  13. The casting has been doubtful from the beginning. Ok, maybe good things about that first. Jodhi May was amazing as Queen Calanthe, and also Anya Chalotra as young Yennefer. Joey Batey is not bad as Jaskier. Emma Appleton did a good job as Renfri, and Myanna Buring plays Tissaia quite well. But otherwise I am not impressed. I know that many fans love Henry Cavill as Geralt, but I think he doesn’t really fit. He is too pleasantly looking. Geralt should have a much sharper, more Slavic style face. Not such a small nose. His acting is probably ok, which doesn’t mean much, a Witcher doesn’t show a rich asset of emotions. Moreover, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer: Too young. Anna Shaffer as Triss: Too old, doesn’t look the part. Mimi Ndiweni as Fringilla: Probably more talented than she can show here, but lookwise off, figure should be similar in appearance to Yennefer. Cassie Clare as Philippa: Too young, could work in terms of looks, but style of acting not suited for the role. And so on. Could be that season 2 is the last and the story won’t be finished on the screen because the viewers are not happy with what they get, starting with the cast which may yet be one of the minor problems. Solution: Reading the books again.

  14. I am a german girl and a book fan and think the casting is good (for the acting we’ll have to wait), but even if she is not white I think she have a good look for Philippa. She has a strong willed looking face that adapts well to the character.
    Witcher is set in a fantasy world and even if people say there must be a division of races I do not think that is the case. You can think of it as a multiracial world. It have inspiration from nordid mythology yes, but who’s to say in world where there are mythical monsters all around there should not be non white people? Look at the world today, if you come to Germany you’ll find black people living here. Just because they are not blonde like me doesn’t mean they can’t be here, because people travel, you know? So, if Europe had received non white people in let’s say, 1250, it might have been seen as weird at first, but if enslavement never came it could have been a multiracial continent. Let’s pretend witcher happens in a continent with multiracial people, the elves are victim of racism, but humans see themselves as the same. What I do not agree is replacing a real person with some of a different race (like the black Anne Boleyn in the upcoming series), but in fantasy it is cool to include everyone! One of my friends is biracial (black and white) and she is german and she grew up to stories both of german folklore and jamaican, both are her inheritance, it’ll be cool to see someone like her on a series. She is worth of this folklore as well, after all it is fantasy. Just don’t come race swapping people from historical places and events and you are fine with me.

    1. Many people have complained that, when characters in recent movies with saga themes from China or Egypt were portrayed by European actors, it was an expression of white supremacy and a way of stealing the cultural identity of the stories. The criticism came from people in the countries or regions where the stories were set in, even while they were fictional. I haven’t seen any opinion against that kind of criticism in the mainstream media, even though arguing in terms of cultural identity is often fraught with political undertones. So, if that kind of criticism is generally viewed as adequate, then of course Europeans, and Polish people in particular, have similarly a reason to complain if their characters are portrayed in a way that, in their perception, undermines their cultural identity, have they not? The Witcher stories are not portraying the world today (luckily). Aside from that, if you visit today’s Poland, you will find far fewer people of color there than in the neighboring Germany.

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