As the cast and crew of Netflix's The Witcher prepare to start filming season two in the UK, we have fresh details on one of the new characters set to join Henry Cavill's Geralt of Rivia in the gritty fantasy show.
According to Deadline, British actor Carmel Laniado will be taking on a supporting role in the upcoming season for a minimum of three episodes. Laniado recently appeared alongside Robert Downey Jr. in the much-maligned Dolittle move, and will be showing up in The Witcher as a young girl called Violet.
Deadline describes Violet as someone "whose playful and whimsical demeanour is a front for a smarter and more sadistic character". As far as I can tell, there's no character by that name in either the CD Projekt RED Witcher games or the Andrzej Sapkowski books.
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With that in mind, Laniado is either playing a completely new character created specifically for the Netflix show, or perhaps an amalgamation of several characters from the original source material. Either way, her inclusion in season two is potentially significant. The again, it could mean nothing at all. We'll have to wait and see, won't we?
Filming on the new season is expected to kick off here in the UK later this month, before moving to Scotland and Eastern Europe. Deadline understands that the crew is planning to kick off at Arborfield Studios, 40 miles west of London, though Netflix has yet to comment on these reports.
In other season two news, it's been rumoured that Geralt will at some point go toe-to-toe with a leshen (or leshys). These particularly terrifying monsters are evil, ancient woodland spirits that get their kicks from being super intense, terrorising villagers, and murdering those who get lost in the woods in particularly nasty ways.
While referenced in the books, leshen never actually appeared in Andrzej Sapkowski's work. They were, however, a formidable foe in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. If the reports turn out to be true, I look forward to seeing how the Netflix show brings this incredibly creepy monster to life.
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The reports also claim that an unnamed character will suffer "serious consequences" after meeting the leshen. Could this unnamed character perhaps be Violet? We can't possibly say for sure at this point, but it seems like a given that anyone other than Geralt bumping into a leshen is probably going to come away the worse for wear.
Featured Image Credit: NetflixTopics: The Witcher, CD Projekt Red