She also confirmed that production begins “soon”
The Witcher star Freya Allan has told NME what to expect from the Netflix fantasy show’s upcoming fourth season, which introduces new lead Liam Hemsworth as the titular monster hunter previously played by Henry Cavill.
Cavill played Geralt for three seasons from 2019, but announced he would be vacating the position in October 2022. It was widely speculated that he had made the move in order to reprise the role of Superman in upcoming DC films. However, following James Gunn’s shake-up of the Warner Bros. comic book universe, Superman was recast. Cavill subsequently confirmed he would not be returning to The Witcher, with Hemsworth already hired as his replacement.
Allan, who plays the crown princess with magical powers Ciri, said she was “excited” that production on the new season begins “soon”, and teased how her character changes in the new episodes.
“I feel extremely grateful that Ciri has a very interesting arc until the end,” she said. Starting out as a kidnapped child in season one, and following a similar plot to author Andrzej Sapkowski’s books, Ciri has grown as a character since. In the season three finale, she took up with some new friends, and set up an even more central, independent role for her in the future.
“I really do think that I’ve been able to take the character from, you know, if you think about her at the beginning of the series, she’s going to be completely different by the end [of the story] and everything she’s experienced,” said Allan. “I think she’s the character you really get to see change the most throughout the whole show. And I feel very grateful to get to do that.”
She added: “And I think this next realm and this next chapter that we’re going into with her is going to be a very, very different one. It’s going to be a very different series and I’m excited and kind of scared to experience that version of her and the things that she’s going to go through potentially in the next season.”
Right now, you can see Allan in new horror thriller Baghead – released in UK cinemas today (January 26). She plays Iris, a young woman who inherits a run-down pub and discovers a shape-shifting demon in its basement. The biggest challenge of the film, Allan said, was fine-tuning her process of acting scared. “I did it by running on the spot and doing jumping jacks,” she explained, “or holding my breath and basically just getting my heart pounding. Getting out of breath like that instantly helped me get into the right place.”
The film is another dark drama with fantasy elements for Allan, and while she was “intrigued” to “flesh-out” Iris’ backstory, she said she’s looking for something a bit different in her next job.
“it would be nice for me to also get to experience something that isn’t supernatural,” she said. “I’d love to do something which is just completely stripped back and just about acting… I definitely think I’m drawn to the dark stuff… but I want to do a mixture of stuff in general. I really want to do every little realm.”
