The Witcher is casting another familiar villain for Season 3

11 comments

After a quiet month, things in the world of Netflix’s The Witcher are in motion again as production is gearing up for filming Season 3. As we reported previously, location scouting is underway and filming is likely to begin in March or April.

This also means that the casting process has already started and we’ve been hearing that the team is looking for an actor to play a certain new villain, familiar to fans of the books and games alike.


A familiar face joins the hunt

Season 2 of The Witcher ended with the Continent in turmoil, as the hunt for Ciri (Freya Allan) is now fully on. Between Nilfgaard, the Northern Kingdoms and the devilish Rience (Chris Fulton), Geralt (Henry Cavill) will have his hands full trying to keep his protégé safe. Season 3 will throw a few more obstacles his way and one such hindrance is a character known as The Professor.

While we don’t know who will play the character just yet, we did manage to get our hands on some of the lines written for his audition that you can watch below. Notice that these lines were written for the audition only and likely won’t be used in the show itself.

UPDATE: As it always happens, the audition tape was removed, but we do have the transcript.

Professor: “Master Richard will pay you handsomely for illumination as to their whereabouts. We’ll pay if you’ve seen them… I opportune you [Name] so surrender now lest I should be forced to apprehend you with unnecessary wreckage in the wake of my…”

Other Person: “Save the [fat tomboys]??? and let’s get on with it, [Professor]”

Professor: “As you wish.”

Some of this may sound a bit incomprehensible because it’s difficult to make out what he is saying, but the gist of it is pretty straightforward. “Master Richard” likely refers to Rience, as the same codename was used during the casting process for Season 2. The other person speaking, seems to be one of The Professor’s colleagues. And as to whose whereabouts he is looking for, it obviously can’t be anyone else but Yennefer and Ciri.


Who is the Professor?

The Professor in CDPR’s 2007 The Witcher game

The Professor, whose real name is Ralf Blunden, is a career assassin, easily distinguishable by his signature gold-framed glasses and his manner of speaking, when he spoke fancy words he did not entirely understand. In Time of Contempt, he and his cutthroat colleagues are described by Codringher as “better than the Michelets” and are hot on the heels of Yennefer and Ciri until one fateful day, they enter a certain inn in the Temerian town of Anchor…

As game fans may remember, a character named the Professor also appears in the first Witcher game, where he is leading an assault on Kaer Morhen alongside the mage Azar Javed. Although this is meant to be a different character, he is certainly inspired by the book version and got his name.

The Professor (Artwork by Eva Bakulina)

It’s good to finally get word on a new character. Who do you hope to see in The Witcher Season 3? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter and stay tuned for more news!

11 comments on “The Witcher is casting another familiar villain for Season 3”

  1. Thanks for the news RI. I hope geralt follows Yen and Ciri and kills the professor and the other two assassins they’re on their trail like in the books. But what am I say. Knowing Lauren I’m sure she’ll have a side character do that. Smh. I’m sorry, I just can’t trust the woman. Until I hear Henry Cavill was promoted to a producer, I’ll expect the worst. They ruined so many great sl and characters in s2.

  2. The main mistake was that the screenwriters had to reduce and merge the books characters, instead they started to invent a bunch of new ones as if they had 22 episodes for season.

  3. At this point….Who cares?. This “adaptation” is already a lost cause. Fans can only hope for a cancellation. Who knows?. Maybe in a decade there will be another attempt to adapt Sapkowski work.

      1. The damage is already done. The characters ans their relationship are so messed up….that there is no turning back. I can not even imagine the mess when they get to “adapt” The Tower of the Swallow…..its going to be “epic”.lol.

        What a shame, What a waste of a chance to adapt this great story and makes something special.

  4. The strange thing with s2 is that the main plot of the books didn’t progress and instead fanfiction subplot was added. The relationship between Yennefer and Ciri didn’t develop, of which one important aspect in the books is that Ciri is no longer so severely plagued by her dreams and starts to gain some initial control of her magical powers. Not to mention the turnout of the relationship of Geralt and Yennefer. At the end of s2, the characters and their relations are at a point where they stood at the beginning of the season, or one could even say their relations have worsened (Ciri murdering a good number of witchers, Yennefer having betrayed both Ciri and Geralt). There is instead much which isn’t in the books as Fringilla and Francesca do not appear in the books up to this point, apart from the fact that their roles in the books are completely different. There is no interaction between Cahir and Fringilla in the books. Contrast that with having dropped the encounter of child Ciri and Geralt in Broklion in s1. It seems like s2 is a filler, but why would one do that if one hopes to eventually finish a TV series that should roughly stretch over novel material of 7 volumes? It could be that at some stage the actors are losing interest because, with growing popularity, they prefer to take on roles in other TV productions or movies which they see as more prestigious. Or offering higher monetary reward. I can imagine Anya Chalotra as a possible case. Even a big TV show cannot go on forever.

    1. Quite right. The dialogue in season 2 was terrible. It completely undermined the character of Yennefer. The raven haired sorceress is an academic, and a good one. She is well spoken in the books. I cannot remember if Yennefer in the books ever utters a single swear word. It’s simply below her level. However the writers of the show had nothing better on their minds but to write mainly lines for Yennefer that consist of four letter words or are otherwise out of character for the role. Makes you wonder what kind of an audience the writers are aiming at. When the books go high, they go low. It isn’t unlikely that Ms Chalotra won’t be too happy about the downgrading of her character and might become less and less motivated to continue that part because of extremely poor writing. Aspiring actors don’t like to be associated with badly written roles since that is damaging to their career. Could be that Anya Chalotra says farewell to the show after s3 if that turns out be as poorly scripted as S2.

  5. I want to be excited because I love Time of Contempt (and this sounds good) but they already screwed the characters and the story so much that I’m simply scared of what more damage they can do. I couldn’t believe it before s2 but yet here we are. Are things fixable? Sure with better writers.

  6. I keep coming to this site hoping we’ll here news that the show runner is changed but nope. I’ll probably watch just for Henry and Geralt. The only part that reminded The Witcher.

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