The Witcher season 3, part 1 just released on Netflix and has the mage stronghold of Aretuza as part of its main focus. When Geralt (played by Henry Cavill for a final season) and Yennefer need to hide Ciri from the various forces after her, they return to the Brotherhood despite knowing someone there is an enemy. Thankfully, they can count on an alliance with Tissaia (MyAnna Buring) even if she and Yennefer don’t always see eye to eye.
Season 3 of The Witcher also welcomes back several mages, including Sabrina Glessivig (played by Therica Wilson Read). As opinions on how to handle the oncoming threat of Nilfgaard shift, Yennefer’s old friends and enemies must reacquaint themselves and fight together for the Northern kingdoms. At the same time, no one knows who they can trust until the masks come off in season 3, episode 5.
FilmmakerFocus spoke to Buring about the upheaval Tissaia experiences in her relationship with Vilgefortz in The Witcher season 3. Wilson Read also explained how Sabrina’s story has progressed offscreen since season 1, and both actresses shared their thoughts on Henry Cavill’s interpretation of the legendary character.
MyAnna Buring & Therica Wilson Read Talk The Witcher Season 3
FilmmakerFocus: I love the dynamic between Tissaia and Yennefer, which has many layers. Can you talk about the state of this pseudo-mother-daughter bond in season 3 and how it evolves?
I also love getting to see Sabrina again. Welcome back. What has she been up to, and how is she feeling about her place in the Brotherhood?
Therica Wilson Read: She is back with a vengeance. She is feeling so confident. This is a Sabrina like you’ve never seen before. She’s the most confident, fiery, provocative, and on fire. She can be very cutting sometimes. You also see the rivalry between her and Yennefer coming to a head. It’s so exciting to play this new side of Sabrina.
Tissaia and Vilgefortz look so good together, thinking of people who look good together, but the brotherhood is very divided between what should happen with Ciri and what should happen with Nilfgaard. How does this test their bond this year?
MyAnna Buring: Well, enormously. But I think Tissaia very much feels that supporting Vilgefortz, and the fact that they are working as a team together, is going to help them navigate these really polarized opinions that are threatening to sort of crack the Brotherhood apart. It’s always been a really tight political tightrope to walk, but I think she feels that they are steps ahead and therefore they will manage to handle the Brotherhood and eventually take more control. I think that’s the ultimate sort of aim.
If it works out or not, that is a different story, but I think that’s very much [the point of] that allegiance with Vilgefortz. And that connection with Vilgefortz is very important to her.
We must say farewell to Henry as the Witcher this season, sadly. What is your favorite thing about his Geralt?
Therica Wilson Read: I don’t think you can pick one thing. He’s such a fan of the games and of the books, and I think that his representation of Geralt is faultless. I think maybe the voice. The voice is just brilliant, isn’t it?
MyAnna Buring: I think the best thing is that he has been the first Geralt of this new imagining of The Witcher as a TV series. It’s been games, it’s obviously the source material of the books – and he sort of stamped Geralt out onto the world in TV series form and has spread joy and excited old fans and brought in new fans. That’s the best thing that he’s been able to do.
And it’s been wonderful and really celebratory. I think we are all feeling very celebratory that we got to have Henry Cavill play the Witcher in this series, and we are also celebratory about the fact that he’s now passing the baton on of this fantastic character to another actor to evolve it into something else. That’s what we do with fantasy characters. As actors, we pass the baton on. I think it’s really, really exciting.
About The Witcher Season 3
