Lauren Schmidt Hissrich Interview The Witcher S2

Lauren Schmidt Hissrich Interview: The Witcher S2

The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich talks about season 2 of the Netflix show, growing relationships, and adapting Blood of Elves.

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Geralt (Henry Cavill), Ciri (Freya Allan), and Yennefer’s (Anya Chalotra) stories return to Netflix when The Witcher season 2 premieres on December 17. While showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich no longer has to jump between different times once the protagonists have found each other, she still has her work cut out for her diving further into Ciri’s powers, Geralt’s past, and Yennefer’s political conflicts. Not only that, but the series is introducing new characters like Vesemir (Kim Bodnia) that are integral to the lore of the books and games.

Schmidt Hissrich spoke to Screen Rant about adapting from Blood of Elves and bringing these beloved characters closer together than ever.

Screen Rant: How do you handle taking inspiration from the books and the stories as the story further progresses along in season two?

Lauren Schmidt Hissrich: We always go back to the books as our main source. We also knew though that Blood of Elves, which season two covers were going to be a particularly difficult book to adapt from the very beginning. It’s a book where there are a lot of beautiful character moments and things happen, but there’s not a lot of forward-moving plot. It’s more about setting the table for the third book, the Time of Contempt, the third season as well. So we knew that we would have to inject some new stories in there. We always try to make sure that our stories match the tone that’s what Andrzej Sapkowski intended though. That’s our most important thing and that’s the thing that he asked me to do at the very beginning, which is to represent the spirit of the work more than the actual page to page itself.

Yen’s story for instance in Blood of Elves, she is kind of is gone. She’s just disappeared for the first half of the book. She’s recovering from the Battle of Sodden. She’s been blinded. You don’t really know what’s going on, then she shows up because Geralt calls to her. And I just thought, I don’t think our audiences are going to like her just waiting in the wings for that phone call. So we crafted a new story for her, but I think especially people who love the books are going to be able to find a lot of direct page-to-page correlation to the novels.

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How much do Ciri’s powers evolve and how does that shape her relationship with Geralt this season?

Lauren Schmidt Hissrich: What I love about Ciri is that her powers are completely unknown to her. It’s one of the most interesting things because she has these powers. We actually see her obviously accidentally kill people at the end of season one and she’s trying to keep it a secret because in her mind that’s bad and she doesn’t know how to control it.

What’s really interesting is it becomes the basis of her trust with Geralt, which is, is she ever going to tell him what she’s done, does she think she’s going to be punished, does she think that he’s going to abandon her? You know, much like she was abandoned for season one and that really becomes the core of their relationship, which is how do they start to trust each other. To me, it’s so beautiful and through Ciri’s powers, she starts looking into the person that she wants to be in the future, not just the person that she was in the past.

How do you view the relationship between Geralt and Ciri? And can you talk a little bit about the themes of found family that echo throughout the course of the season?

Lauren Schmidt Hissrich: I thought it was really interesting in season one to establish Geralt and Ciri within their own spheres. Geralt was a Witcher and Ciri was a princess on the run and that’s really all that they were, they didn’t feel like they needed anyone else. They certainly didn’t want anyone else. Even though they were destined to be together, they have that hug. Then as you see in the first moments of season one, they’re like, “Wait, who are you? How do I trust you? What do I do?” As I said it’s really about growing their trust and Ciri doesn’t have any family left. And we went back and forth on the show about whether the tone was more older brother or more father figure.

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But I have to say, I learned personally about father figures because there’s something so paternal about how at first Geralt only wants to protect Ciri. And then he starts to teach her how to protect herself. That feels like such a fatherly trait to me. This is the core of our story and Yennefer obviously comes into this at the end as well. She’s had her own story about who is her family? Can she have a baby? What is she looking for in that way? And when she intersects with the two of them we finally get this found family together.

Speaking of found family and father figures, we get to meet Vesemir for the first time this season. Now I saw him obviously in the anime, got to explore him a little bit. Can you talk to me about how Nightmare of the Wolf will play into season two at all?

Lauren: There’s a real sort of simplistic way that it plays in, which is just easter eggs of course. When Ciri and Geralt first arrive at Kaer Morhen there’s a huge Griffin skull in the belly that they go through. And of course, anyone that has watched the anime knows that the Griffin plays a huge part in the fall of Kaer Morhen. But I think it’s more than that. I think Kim Bodnia who plays Vesamir always joked about how much fun young Vesamir had, how Theo James played him, it was delightful.

But we realize at the start of season two, that Vesamir has an innate sadness to him. There’s something missing. We purposely built Kaer Morhen to be this huge spectacular space and then we put very few people in it. So from the get-go, it feels lonely and empty. And you understand that Vesamir is yearning for not just what the Witchers were in the past and what his sons were in the past, but he’s really striving to find what role the Witcher’s have in this world. I think that if you watch the anime, you understand where that sadness comes from on a truly deeper level.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/witcher-season-2-lauren-schmidt-hissrich-interview/

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