The Stress Of The Witcher Season 3 Followed Freya Allan Into Her Dreams
This post contains spoilers for "The Witcher" season 3, volume 1.
After a season spent training with Geralt (Henry Cavill), Princess Ciri (Freya Allan) is ready to slay some monsters. The Child Surprise at the center of Netflix's high fantasy hit "The Witcher" is coming into her own in the show's new season, and that means learning control over her magic from Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), making decisions about her future, and, yes, hunting down some beasties.
Ciri's first big kill comes in the fourth episode of the new season, when she convinces Geralt to let her vanquish the sea monster that's been plaguing the ocean waves along the path Geralt, Yen, Ciri, and Jaskier (Joey Batey) aim to travel. It's an impressive takedown of a creature several times her size, and it's not the only creature she crosses paths with. Later, in a moment of sympathy that makes the previously-hidden girl stick out like a sore thumb, she frees a wyvern that a scammy street performer was treating cruelly. Ciri has apparently internalized all the lessons she's been taught pretty well, including Geralt's philosophy about not taking a life unless you have to.
'I was having dreams that I was mass-murdering monsters ...'
Although the monsters in "The Witcher" are largely CGI, Ciri actor Freya Allan told Digital Spy in a June 2023 interview that she still found herself envisioning the various beasts of the realm — in her dreams. "At the start of filming, I was having dreams — this sounds crazy — but I was having dreams that I was mass-murdering monsters and s***," Allan told the outlet. "I was Ciri in the dreams. I was too excited that I now have a sword, that I was dreaming of killing monsters." The actor reportedly performed stunts herself during the season 3 shoot, so it makes sense that long days spent learning to act out a battle with a monster would make a lasting impact.
Back around the premiere of season 2, Allan told HeyUGuys that she'd been hoping to get some on-set swordplay in since season 1 and was eager to do stunts, even if it was with "a bit of a pathetic wooden sword" that Ciri used for her early training sessions. This time around, the stunts are bigger, and Digital Spy reported that the shoot involved enduring a heat wave on location in Morocco. "It was such a big challenge," Allan said of one sequence shot in the desert. "And I think when you get to say you've done it, it does give you a new kind of strength. We were battling with 45 degrees. It was genuinely a challenge for me, not just Ciri."
A desert-set scene was especially grueling
Along with wyverns and sea monsters, the first few episodes also see Ciri in a race against some horrifying, corpse-like monsters that she initially thinks are ghosts, only to discover that they've left remnants of ash behind. The ghoulish horsemen chase her through a forest, but Freya Allan also described shooting what seems to be a scene from volume 2 that takes place in a desert and is similarly harrowing. "Ciri goes on her journey through the desert, the Korath desert," she told Digital Spy. "Essentially, she is battling with her own mind, and all the voices in her head, because she's there in the desert on her own. That's all she has: these voices in her head."
Though the voices apparently also got in Allan's head in the form of some freaky, monster-themed dreams, it sounds like the actor is still thrilled about her action-packed turn in the new season, as she should be. Over the course of the show, Ciri has evolved from a defenseless kid into a warrior in her own right, capable of becoming the best of both Geralt and Yen. Now, if only they could get her to stop making a scene in public every time they're trying to lay low.
"The Witcher" season 3, volume 1 is now on Netflix. Volume 2 will debut on the streamer on July 27, 2023.