Another detail on the Witcher Netflix series has come around, this time on the casting call for Ciri. That call is still going out, so we don’t know who’s playing her, but we do have two pertinent details on what the folks behind the series are looking for. More specifically, they want Ciri to be young, and they want her to not be white.
The casting for Crilla, the ‘The Lion Cub of Cintra’ reads “looking for a 16 or 15 year old BAME” – that’s ‘black, Asian, and minority ethnic’ if you’re not from the UK – “girl who can play down to 13/14. Must not be older than 18 years old.” Certain corners of the internet are preemptively upset about the possibility of Ciri not being white, though there’s little justifiable reason for it – unless you’re married to the idea that Polish fantasy requires Polish ethnicity across all its fictional nations.
This comes via a big list of auditions from the National Youth Theatre, and the listing also gives a brief summary of Ciri’s role in the story.
“Ciri can often be found rough-housing with the Palace hands instead of sitting in finery at the knee of the Queen Calanthe, her grandmother. That is, until Cintra is massacred by the Nilfgaardians and Ciri is orphaned, left to traverse the Continent, alone. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s a direct descendent of Lara Dorren, an Elven Mage – which is why everyone in our series is after her. We follow Ciri as she evades her captors, and in the meantime, discovers her magical talents, her dark side, and the role she is to play in the coming apocalypse.”
Eventually Ciri ends up with Yennefer and Geralt – who will be played by Henry Cavill – as the three start travelling the the Continent together. “Geralt and Yennefer reliaze that they must protect this girl,” the description continues, “who might just destroy the world.”
Filming is set to begin in October and end in May, at least for Ciri’s part. The Witcher series is currently set to release next year, having recently been pushed forward by Netflix.