Fresh from working on the first season of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series, British comedy veteran Lenny Henry has signed on to take a role in the upcoming Netflix series The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel to their hit series The Witcher. Henry is one of ten new additions to the cast that have been announced, along with the names of the show’s directors, as filming begins in the UK.
Set in “an elven world” 1,200 years before the events we saw in the first season of The Witcher, The Witcher: Blood Origin is a six-part series that will tell
a story lost to time – the creation of the first prototype Witcher, and the events that lead to the pivotal “conjunction of the spheres,” when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.
We’ve previously heard that Blood Origin will star Laurence O’Fuarain as Fjall, who was born into a clan of warriors sworn to protect a King and is now on a quest for redemption; Sophia Brown as Éile, an elite warrior who left her clan to become a nomadic musician; and Michelle Yeoh as Scían, the last from a tribe of sword-elves.
Henry will be playing a character named Balor. Also joining the cast are Mirren Mack (The Nest) as Merwyn; Nathaniel Curtis (It’s A Sin) as Brían; Dylan Moran (Black Books) as Uthrok One-Nut; Jacob Collins Levy (Young Wallander) as Eredin; Lizzie Annis (Night Growler) as Zacaré; Huw Novelli (The Capture) as Callan, a.k.a. “Brother Death”; Francesca Mills (Harlots) as Meldof; newcomer Amy Murray as Fenrik; and Zach Wyatt (Karen Pirie) as Syndril.
Sarah O’Gorman (Cursed) is directing the first, fourth, and sixth episodes of the series. The second, third, and fifth episodes are being directed by Vicky Jewson (Close).
Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and showrunner Declan de Barra serve as executive producers on The Witcher: Blood Origin, alongside Matt O’Toole, Hivemind’s Jason Brown and Sean Daniel, and Tomek Baginski and Jarek Sawko of Platige Films. Andrzej Sapkowski, whose novels inspired the Witcher shows, is involved as creative consultant.