The Witcher Netflix series has had some interesting developments this week. Firstly it saw Henry Cavill cast as Geralt of Rivia, and now a casting call for his surrogate daughter Ciri has unveiled new details about the character. She likely won’t be white in The Witcher Netflix series. The news has caused uproar online.
These details were found on the National Youth Theatre auditions page. The page’s description for the role reads, “Looking for a 16 or 15 year old BAME girl who can play down to 13/14. Must not be older than 18 years old.” BAME stands for black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. The post goes on to describe Ciri as “resilient, relentless, brazen, growing” before giving details about the characters background. Showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich has previously worked on The West Wing, Daredevil, and Parenthood among others.
The subreddit dedicated to The Witcher is currently awash with threads about the casting call. “I’m Polish and here’s why I think that changing Ciris’ skin color is racist.” is one such thread, with over 3000 comments and 9000 upvotes. Another titled, “This tweet didn’t age well” recalls a tweet from Hissrich where the showrunner says she wouldn’t change characters heritage for no reason. On ResetEra the thread about the casting call has over 1200 comments, and Twitter.
Will I move through the book and start changing people’s cultural heritage or ethnic makeup or gender because I’m feeling really “liberal” that day? No. That’s ridiculous and contrary to what ANY writer would do, because we are storytellers. Story comes first.
— Lauren S. Hissrich (@LHissrich) May 11, 2018
Hissrich tweeted about the casting call on Friday saying, “You guys. You KNOW I don’t comment on casting. I never have. I never will.” She has not tweeted or replied since that time. It seems that Ciri’s skin color won’t be confirmed until somebody is publicly cast in the role.
The Netflix Witcher series will be based on the stories written by Andrzej Sapkowski, and not the critically-acclaimed Witcher video games developed by CD Projekt Red. Sapkowski is serving as a consultant on the show, which will be releasing in 2019 on the streaming service.
