By The cast and crew of The Witcher are hard at work at the moment in sand dunes of Sahara near Erfoud, Morocco as well as back home at Longcross Studios. Last week we had the pleasure to see Henry Cavill, Freya Allan and Anya Chalotra on set in South Wales.
We’re waiting to learn more about the Moroccan shoot so while they continue to work, we have some casting news today.
Ryan Hayes as Artaud Terranova
We’ve learned that Ryan Hayes will play the mage Artaud Terranova in Season 3 of The Witcher. In the books, Terranova was among the mages who participated in the Thanedd coup and sought to capture Ciri during all the chaos.
Many considered Terranova’s character to be on the chopping block since the series already had mages, whose roles were expanded and also his ultimate fate was all too fitting for Lars Mikkelsen’s Stregobor. Nevertheless, we’ll see Artaud Terranova in Season 3 in the end, but it’s still not impossible that he’d lend his death scene to Stregobor.
Hayes’ credits include Carnival Row, Emerald City as well as the upcoming Netflix series Bodies.
Michalina Olszanska as a sorceress
One of the critiques that the second season of The Witcher got from Polish viewers in terms of the casting department was that there was not enough representation of Polish people.
Showrunner Lauren Hissrich responded to that and explained that it was hard to accomplish as they were in the middle of a global pandemic and suggested that they were working on that in Season 3. Enter Michalina Olszanska.
We don’t know who exactly Olszanska plays in The Witcher Season 3, but we do know she is a mage and was in Wales last week filming along with other mages including Mahesh Jadu and Safiyya Ingar. She also celebrated her 30th birthday with the cast and crew.
Olszanska’s credits include I, Olga, Carga as well as the Polish Netflix series 1983, which also starred Maciej Musial, who played Sir Lazlo in the first season of The Witcher.
More Witcher casting news
In other casting news we have Kate Winter (Boogie Man) as Putney and Martyn Ellis (It’s A Sin, Doctors) as Barker. Both are appearing in Gandja Monteiro episodes, so either 3 or 4.
Next we have Harvey Quinn (Recaptured), whose role we don’t know, but is almost certainly a mage as he’s been involved in scenes with a large group of mages.
Same goes for Poppy Almond (Blurred Lines), who also plays a character involved with other mages in one way or another.
And that will be it for today’s casting news. We’ll find more soon!
Season 3 of The Witcher is in production until September 2022 for a 2023 release. The live-action prequel The Witcher: Blood Origin is in post-production after two weeks of reshoots and is currently eyed for a Christmas 2022 release. Stay tuned to Redanian Intelligence and do pop into our Discord server to join in on The Witcher conversation.
Michalina Olszanska suits me the character of Sheal de Tancarville