The Witcher Netflix series, we met the cast at Lucca Comics & Games

The Witcher Netflix series

Our favorite monster hunter is back, Geralt of Rivia is back, but not the hero of the sensational game CD Projekt but the version reinvented by Netflix. For the debut of the second season of The Witcher, available from December 17, the streaming giant has organized things in a big way, inviting part of the cast to this latest edition of Lucca Comics & Games, as well as allowing us to preview the first two installments of this new and awaited season.

A first-rate cast

Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia The busy day began with a moderated press presentation by the journalist Gianmaria Tammaro, who was attended by showrunner Lauren Schmidt, costume designer Lucinda Wright and production designer Andrew Laws, as well as Joey Batey and Kim Bodnia, the two actors who respectively play Ranuncolo (or if you prefer Jesker, Dandelion or Principe Nightingale ) and the epic Vesemir.

All eyes could only be focused on the latter: Vesemir is one of the great novelties of the new eight episodes on the horizon and the choice of an actor like Kim Bodnia, endowed with an exceptional stage presence, seems to have pleased everyone. Behind Vesemir there also seems to be a great change of direction, with a casting that perhaps for the first time does not depart from the stylistic features proposed by the video game, proposing a face extraordinarily similar to that of the character seen in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Armor and masks

Lauren Schmidt, The Witcher showrunner for Netflix It is during the press conference that Lauren Schmidt explained the great difficulties of returning to work after the great stop imposed by Covid . Costume designer Lucinda Wright confesses that she has often worked precisely around the need to use safety masks on the set, she often took as inspiration to create new armor and new costumes that were functional to the setting, but at the same time guaranteed greater safety for the actors. A way not only to circumvent the pandemic problem, but also to exploit it to create completely new styles for the series, as new will be the regions that our heroes will go to explore. In short, a clear change of direction is expected with respect to the work done in the first eight episodes by Tim Aslam who did a good job but, let's face it, not exactly exceptional.

A richer fantasy

A scene from The Witcher From the audience there was also some criticism of the chronological order imposed by Lauren Schmidt on the first season, characterized by time jumps that confused part of the audience, making it perhaps a little too difficult to follow the events narrated. To the criticism, the showrunner reacted with a big smile, followed by a "maybe it was only clear in my head?", And finally revealing that this new season will be more linear than the first, but not totally without surprises. More generally, from the words of the cast as well as from the vision of the first two episodes, it is clear that this time the money available to the production was much more, and this made it possible to better explore the geography of the places and to propose situations that in the first season they could never have been realized. Schmidt also confirms that the series was shot entirely in England, using sets reconstructed in the studio as well as many more outdoor scenes than in the past, a choice that will guarantee the viewer greater variety of environments and far more spectacular and wide-ranging shots than those offered. in 2019.

Netflix calls, CD Projekt responds

A scene from The Witcher After the press conference, the cast moved to the rooftop of the Grand Hotel del Giglio, in the square of the same name in Lucca , where the lucky ones were able to join them for a more exclusive roundtable. On a terrace overlooking the Tuscan hills and twirling between the roofs of the ancient buildings of the fortress city, embraced by a rare sun but, at full force, we sat down to continue discussing this new awaited season of The Witcher. Here too, Schmidt is always the star of the group, the one who undeniably pulls the strings directing the cast inside and outside the set; an iron woman who we will discover has also worked on the wonderful West Wing, as well as for The Umbrella Academy and the less successful series dedicated to Daredevil of 2016.

After having heard several times in the past the production distances itself from game, to align itself more vehemently with the original vision of the author Andrzej Sapkowski, we were extremely surprised to learn that for this second season the collaboration with CD Projekt has become gradually closer, at certain times even daily. A collaboration that allowed the two mediums to initiate an exchange of ideas and styles that have profoundly influenced the appearance of this new season and, as we seemed to eavesdrop, could also have influenced the development of the "next gen" re-edition. of The Witcher videogame (scoop or mistake? We'll find out in a few months, when we have both products available).

A Vesemir to scream

Kim Bodnia as Vesemir Finally takes the word Kim Bodnia who begins to describe his Vesemir, a father, but also a brother to his witchers, a dramatic figure, but not entirely, because the series has chosen a path that never completely abandons a certain reassuring lightness; follows an extraordinary sequence of adjectives of respect towards Henry Cavill with whom he has inevitably established a very close friendship from the set.

The meeting ended with a reflection, a question and an answer that could interest you as it did us: as great lovers of books and video games, lately we have started to think about the characters of The Witcher no more with the faces of the game, but with those of the TV series, and precisely to our medieval bard, the Dandelion played by Joey Batey, we asked if he was interested in lending his face to the next CD Projekt video game. The answer?

If they paid fair, no problem!

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