A new clip from The Witcher Season 4 has found its way online, and it picks up with Liam Hemsworth's Geralt of Rivia and his friends as they meet Regis (Laurence Fishburne) for the first time.
It's an initially tense exchange, though Regis is an enigmatic presence and promises to be one of the most exciting and intriguing additions to this penultimate season. Those of you who have played The Witcher games will know that he's a vampire, and he'll eventually join the lead's new crew.
With only two seasons left before Netflix pulls the plug on The Witcher, there are many characters that fans of both the books and games are eager to meet on screen. Regis has long been at the top of many lists, and Fishburne has been well-cast.
Talking to IGN (via SFFGazette.com), The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich explained how having these characters around him changes Geralt.
"That changed Geralt's voice, because suddenly he's not just talking to Ciri, Yennefer and Jaskier. He's interacting with Milva. He meets Regis for the first time," she teased. "Regis, for instance, brings an entire moral and ethical center, and pushes Geralt on a lot of things, and suddenly these were conversations that we'd never been able to have on the show before. So it changed a lot."
"But it's really also innate to what Geralt is going through in Season Four. He is in a more emotional, vulnerable place. So we were able to adjust [for] this new actor coming in, but also new colors for the character that felt very organic to the story."
Revealing what The Matrix star brings to The Witcher Season 4, Hissrich added, "[He] wanted to come on and have a lot of fun. He was very intrigued by being able to put on all the prosthetics to play this genre character that he had never played before. There's a certain flamboyance to Regis that he was really excited to embrace."
"And for us, it was really about playing with these tropes of what it means to be a vampire, what it means to, quote, unquote, be a monster, and how oftentimes he's the character who feels like he has the most humanity," she continued. "Laurence is a delight. I had no idea what to expect. He's a really kind person, and he was having, I think, the time of his life."
In The Witcher Season 4, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri find themselves separated by a raging war and countless enemies. As their paths diverge and their goals sharpen, they stumble on unexpected allies eager to join their journeys. And if they can accept these found families, they just might have a chance at reuniting for good.
The cast includes Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer of Vengerberg, Freya Allan as Princess Cirilla of Cintra, Joey Batey as Jaskier, Laurence Fishburne as Regis, Meng’er Zhang as Milva, Sharlto Copley as Leo Bonhart, and James Purefoy as Skellen.
The Witcher Season 4 premieres on Netflix on October 30.