The first scribblings for theWitcherspin-off series came from a napkin in a cafe in November 2019.
Declan de Barra, the creator, loves telling this story because it never happens like this in Hollywood.
It may never happen to him again.
Sophia Brown stars in ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’ as Éile, once a member of the elven Queens-guard and now a traveling musician with the voice of an angel.Lilja Jonsdottir/Netflix
De Barra had joined Netflix’sThe Witcher, starringHenry Cavill, as a writer and executive producer.
More specifically, what the world pre-Conjunction looked like.
“I was like, ‘F— yeah!’
Laurence O’Fuarain stars as Fjall, part of a clan of warriors now on a mission of vengeance after a loved one dies in battle.Lilja Jonsdottir/Netflix
and then literally sat in a cafe and scribbled it down on a napkin,” De Barra recalls.
De Barra says the concept “hasn’t really changed much” since that napkin.
It never really flows this easily."
Michelle Yeoh’s sword-elf Scian jumps into action on ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin.'.Susie Allnutt/Netflix
“I’m excited to be showing the fans something they don’t know,” Brown remarks.
“We can create whatever we want to create.
So we don’t have to fit any sort of mold.
We just get to play.”
It’s a thriving society with various kingdoms and hierarchies.
O’Fuarain maps it out: “The royals are at the top, and then the mages and sages.
Then we have the warrior class.
Then we have the lowborn.”
It’s also more technically advanced when it comes to magic and science, De Barra points out.
“In a weird way, they were enlightened, but it had its problems,” he says.
“There was massive social stratification.
There’s highborn and lowborn, and you shall not pass from one to the other.
That’s their form of racism, and specie-ism in terms of how the dwarves are treated.
It’s not a perfect society at all.”
De Barra wanted to tell a story about how history is told by the victors.
Colonialism, as it exists in the real world, works by killing language, culture, and education.
The same will become true of the elves.
Brown’s Eile is one of them.
“Eile picked it up and that was the end of her,” De Barra explains.
In the old days, in these times, you would be put to death.
There was no leaving.
But she’s the daughter of the chieftain, and so she left.
She was pretty much banished from there."
Now, Eile is a traveling musician, though those warrior instincts remain.
Brown calls her “small but mighty.”
“I didn’t want a woman who is tough and self-sufficient to just be seen as cold.”
Brown finds it difficult to perform these pieces without feeling like she is Eile.
“I’ve got a playlist for her, as well.
I can’t listen to any of the songs on it,” she says.
“I’ve gotta leave it a little while [longer].”
The muscle
Brown found commonalities between Eile and Fjall, played by O’Fuarain.
Both characters are on the same level in the elven hierarchy, just living in separate clans.
Similar to Eile, Fjall guards his royal family in the Dog Clan.
Unlike those in Raven Clan, the warriors in his don’t use swords.
“I think the show explores what happens to people when they have been used.
O’Fuarain sees a bit of hypocrisy within Fjall at the start ofBlood Origin.
Then, by circumstances that will become clear in the series, Fjall is cast out of his clan.
Emotion, especially love, isn’t encouraged in Fjall’s line of work.
But soon, Fjall becomes consumed by emotion.
“It’s eating him up inside an awful lot.
He can’t make peace with himself or the world around him.
While that’s happening, the Continent is in total turmoil.”
O’Fuarain took the physicality this role demanded very seriously.
He points to Cavill, who headlines the mainWitcherseries.
“So I knew I needed to really put the effort in.”
Most days on set he didn’t need to hit the gym.
The axe Fjall wields is pretty darn heavy, the actor admits.
“Obviously, when we’re using it to fight, I’d have to use the fake one.
The weapon, too, gives us some clue into the character of Fjall.
“When Fjall goes out into the world, he comes across this axe,” O’Fuarain says.
He loves some big axes.
He jumped at the chance to grab that.”
“Fjall is quite adorable, but Scian would never say so,” Yeoh says.
“He is impetuous and emotional.
He gets very angry before he understands why and does things without thinking first.
Scian believes if he learned not to be so temperamental, he could be a very good warrior.”
“Unfortunately for the Queen of Pryshia, I taught Eile more than swordsmanship.”
Scian is living as a hermit out in the Black Sands when we meet her.
Scian’s body is covered in distinct tattoos, and all of them have special meanings.
According to Yeoh, the one on her forehead translates as “promises made shall not waiver.”
It speaks to how the elves of Ghost Clan lived by the ideals of promise and integrity.
“She is very spiritual,” Yeoh adds.
“This existence is only interrupted because Eile has come looking for her.”
Vengeance seems to be a common thread that binds the three figures.
She sees grief as being the binding agent.
“Each of them are searching for a closure of something from their past,” she says.
O’Fuarain believes “each of the characters are carrying a bit of weight.”
They all can see each other in one another due to their shared trauma.”
The Witcher: Blood Originpremieres on Christmas on Netflix.
