Those behind the Netflix hit fantasy series, The Witcher, have been through a lot in their efforts to try and bring us Season 2, and basically through no fault of their own. But, even with multiple production shutdowns (either because of injury, or, you know, the world), the cast and crew have still managed to make progress in the past several months. We've heard lots of rumors about potential castings, but a recent announcement of official new players joining the show for the new season has The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich reacting to all of those castings like the rest of us fans.
While some of the rumored castings we've been hearing for months were recently shown to be correct, we also got announcements for new actors in roles many of us weren't expecting. This means that a lot of exciting, new things will be coming to The Witcher Season 2, and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich seems just as pumped as the show's many fans. She took to Twitter after the seven castings were made official, and noted:
I fucking love casting announcements. Such a rush.
OK, I realize that this might not be the most excited someone can get on social media, but let's give the woman a break. She's still got a lot of work to do!
Lauren Schmidt Hissrich might not have loaded up her tweet with exclamation points, fire emojis or exploding head emojis, but there's still no doubt that this is great news. After a relatively contained Season 1, which focused mostly on setting up the world and the lives of Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer, Schmidt Hissrich and her team can now open things up and bring in even more characters from the books and video games as a way to explore this complex fantasy universe more thoroughly.
The series has now officially added Outlander, Lucifer, and Preacher vet Graham McTavish as Redanian Intelligence leader / master spy Sigismund Dijkstra, so we can be sure that his character is likely to be an important player in events of the new season, even if we don't see him in every episode. We can also look forward to Bridgerton actors Adjoa Andoh as priestess Nenneke, and Chris Fulton as a mage, Rience, who'll be tasked with tracking down Ciri.
Cassie Clare (Brave New World) is taking on the role of King Vizimir II's advisor and sorceress Philippa Eilhart, while Kevin Doyle (Downton Abbey) is portraying new character, Ba’lian. And, (Yes! There are more!) Liz Carr from Devs and Simon Callow (Outlander) will play lawyers / detectives Fenn and Codringher, respectively.
So far, we know that Season 2 of The Witcher is set to abandon the, often confusing, multiple timelines of the first season, now that Geralt and Ciri have finally found each other. While this doesn't guarantee that we'll never see anything that happened in the past, it will at least be clear that that's what we're watching. Also, with conflict still tearing the Continent apart, and Ciri dealing with powers that she doesn't understand and can't control, Geralt will be taking her to his childhood Witcher training site / home of Kaer Morhen to teach the exiled princess how to fight. And, we can count on the show getting off to a bloody bang of a start.
We still, likely, have a while to wait for The Witcher Season 2 to hit Netflix, but if all this cool new casting info being confirmed doesn't help keep you excited and intrigued for the events of the upcoming set of episodes, well, no one's going to be tossing you any coins any time soon.
Until we hear about a release date for Season 2 of The Witcher, take a look at all the new Witcher shows, movies and everything else coming up soon, be sure to check out our guide to early 2021 TV premieres and see what's coming to Netflix in April!
