\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>t is a bittersweet day for Anya Chalotra. On the one hand, The\u00a0Witcher, the fantasy epic in\u00a0which she has played super-sorcerer Yennefer of Vengerberg since 2018, is about to return for a fourth series. All the hard work she and hundreds of others have done can finally be seen by millions of fans worldwide. The cast and crew wrap party is due to take place a few hours after we speak. It\u2019s an exciting time for the actor. But on the other hand: \u201cI wrapped The Witcher for good yesterday,\u201d Chalotra says. \u201cSo forgive me if I can\u2019t string a sentence together. It\u2019s all very odd \u2026 I\u00a0cried a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Refreshingly for a big-budget fantasy show, The Witcher will bow out with its story complete, rather than at some dissatisfying midpoint due to an unceremonious cancellation. And though viewers will be seeing a\u00a0final season of monsters, magic, mages, swords, skulduggery and swearing next year, the final two seasons were filmed back to back, meaning after the evening\u2019s shindig, that\u2019s that. The job that has taken over\u00a0Chalotra\u2019s life for so long, and the\u00a0people who go with it (besides one\u00a0high-profile absence, which we\u2019ll touch on later), is finally over.<\/p>\n \u201cI was 23\u00a0when I started,\u201d Chalotra, now 30, says. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time. I\u00a0think the\u00a0most emotional I got was\u00a0when I\u00a0was sat there yesterday watching everyone work. Just in my chair, drinking a cup of tea. You know these people \u2026 everyone works so hard<\/em> on the show. Eight months of a year for\u00a0seven years. I\u2019m going to miss everyone\u2019s faces.\u201d<\/p>\n It has been a long journey, for\u00a0the actor and the character. The Witcher began as a series of short stories and novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski about monster hunter for hire Geralt of Rivia, which then became a hugely successful video game franchise before Netflix brought Sapkowski\u2019s world to TV. Chalotra\u2019s character begins the tale as a 14-year-old peasant girl, abused by her parents because of her physical deformities, who eventually becomes the ass-kicking mage, military leader and love of Geralt\u2019s life we know today. When Chalotra was cast, she thought it important to do her research, playing the games and getting stuck into the books, of which she remains a fan: \u201cWhen I was going back to the books this season, there\u2019s some remarkable<\/em> lines. Some incredible<\/em> quotes. It\u2019s so grounded for a fantasy.\u201d She carried that groundedness over to the way she played Yennefer, making burning thousands of soldiers to a smouldering crisp with apocalyptic flame spells or the quiet grief of learning she was unable to have children equally plausible. It\u2019s a fine balance, not easy to strike.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Chalotra was born in Wolverhampton, her father from India\u00a0and her mother from the Midlands (the mention of which elicits a hoot of \u201cMidlands! Yaaaaay!\u201d). \u201cI\u00a0was\u00a0a middle child,\u201d she laughs, considering why she thinks she became an actor. \u201cI don\u2019t need to say any more!\u201d But she pinpoints her mixed heritage as a huge element of\u00a0her desire to perform: \u201cI watched a\u00a0lot of Bollywood as a kid. I loved musicals, film, watching very different experiences of people on stage, on screen. Because I only had my own experience, coming from quite a strict upbringing. So I was so curious about other people\u2019s lives. Wanting to find out more about why\u00a0someone is the way they are, their culture. I was very heavily influenced by my<\/em> culture. And I think I was just interested in how people were created.\u201d<\/p>\n My first season, there was a lot of fan negativity \u2026 I learned that it can be quite intense<\/p>\n A desire to use acting to find out what made her and the people around her tick led Chalotra to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and then to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. \u201cThere was nothing else that came into my head that I wanted to do,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it was possible until about 17 years old when I got in and I realised that my family were going to support me. And going to London from Wolverhampton. That was a huge shift.\u201d<\/p>\n That commitment paid off quickly. Not long after graduating, she was nominated for a Stage Debut award in\u00a0a Globe production of Much Ado About Nothing in 2017, and then in 2018 starred with Toni Collette in the\u00a0BBC\u2019s\u00a0Wanderlust, and John Malkovich and Shirley Henderson in\u00a0Agatha Christie adaptation The ABC\u00a0Murders. \u201cShirley Henderson, Toni Collette, John Malkovich,\u201d she lists. \u201cThat\u2019s it \u2013 I\u2019m happy. I was so curious, I almost didn\u2019t want to do any work. They\u2019re doing<\/em> it in front of you. You\u2019re so close. I just wanted to watch them.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Under the spell \u2026 Anya Chalotra.<\/span> Photograph: Rachell Smith<\/p>\n It was shortly afterwards that Chalotra was cast in The Witcher, and\u00a0everything changed. It was her first taste of the intensity of geek culture, for better and for worse. The\u00a0third Witcher game, considered one of the greatest of all time, has sold in excess of 60m copies worldwide; the\u00a0books more than 15m by the time Chalotra took the role. Season one of\u00a0the show in 2019 broke Netflix\u2019s records as its most-watched debut series ever up to that point. That\u2019s some enthusiastic fandom. \u201cI was chucked into it,\u201d Chalotra says. \u201cA\u00a0baptism of fire. Daunting, but so\u00a0thrilling.\u201d Sadly, as\u00a0with many women of minority ethnic backgrounds cast in popular franchises, a small yet vocal corner of\u00a0the internet protested her involvement on the grounds of her having the temerity not to match the exact image of the character each individual fan had in their heads. \u201cI\u2019m\u00a0not on social media. I stopped,\u201d says Chalotra. \u201cI\u00a0haven\u2019t been on it for a long time. The first season, for me \u2026 there was a\u00a0lot of negativity. A lot of positive as well, but obviously the negative \u2026 This was one of my first jobs. It hit me hard. I learned very quickly that it can all be quite intense.\u201d<\/p>\n Eight months filming a year for seven years was also intense, though the bulk of it took place at Longcross Studios in the UK. \u201cWe try to travel as\u00a0much as we can,\u201d she says, but handily, at least for budgetary reasons,\u00a0the studio\u2019s surroundings have \u201ca lot of green\u201d, and when a different type of green is called for, they do \u201ca fair bit of filming in Wales\u201d. This at least allowed Chalotra, who lives in London, to retain some semblance of normality when off the clock. \u201cBut even when you are filming here, you don\u2019t get much downtime,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd so those moments, when you do come off set and get home, you want to keep to yourself anyway. I get home and eat something and have a shower, kind of like washing off Yennefer. Eight months is\u00a0such a lot of a year to be in the headspace of a character. You go in the\u00a0next day\u00a0and you\u2019re doing the same thing. I\u00a0have had to learn so many tools to try to separate myself from this job. I have found that really tough, and continue to.\u201d<\/p>\n For these final two seasons, there was also the added complication of the show\u2019s previous Geralt, Henry Cavill, departing after season three due to the\u00a0time constraints of filming and different ideas about how his character should be portrayed than those of the showrunners. Into his gruff shoes steps Liam Hemsworth, who brings a\u00a0new vulnerability to the baritone badass, which does the character no harm whatsoever. When Cavill left, did Chalotra think that could be the end of the show? Another fantasy epic\u00a0left half-finished on the scrapheap\u00a0of cancellation?<\/p>\n <\/span>Look sharp \u2026 Mecia Simson and Anya Chalotra in the new season of The Witcher.<\/span> Photograph: Netflix<\/p>\n \u201cNo, actually,\u201d she says. \u201cI think I\u00a0always knew we\u2019d all continue. With\u00a0the love for the material, we knew that it was going to go again. I\u00a0was excited to see where Yennefer went, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d The cast and crew were also eager to make Hemsworth feel welcome \u2013 Chalotra is\u00a0adamant no hazing rituals or ribbing\u00a0of the new boy occurred. \u201cWe\u00a0didn\u2019t want to be too intense,\u201d she\u00a0laughs. \u201cWe just wanted to make space for Liam. He understands people. He understands this world. He\u00a0was able to\u00a0come in so naturally. It\u00a0was really easy.\u201d (Hemsworth himself has rather sweetly described the experience as being like \u201cchanging school halfway through the year\u201d.)<\/p>\n For one day more, at least, Chalotra seems happy to still be very much in\u00a0Witcher World. She describes the previous day of filming, and how when\u00a0casting spells, even after seven years, she still makes \u201cWhoosh!\u201d and \u201cFzzzzzt!\u201d noises when performing the hand gestures. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to, right?! Someone\u2019s always saying: \u2018Anya, now can we do a take without the sound effects?\u2019 Fine, I\u2019ll try!\u201d<\/p>\n She is tight-lipped about her next projects, and says \u201cthe next stage of my life is about rewilding\u201d, though she\u00a0is set to star alongside Ralph Ineson and Euphoria\u2019s Chloe Cherry in\u00a0the dark thriller Two Neighbors, which played at this year\u2019s Edinburgh film festival. She is also about to go straight into a \u201cshort period of filming\u201d, though insists \u201cit doesn\u2019t mean that I\u00a0won\u2019t be grieving Yennefer. We\u2019re all\u00a0just so connected by these seven years. I think we\u2019ll be trying to distil this experience for a long time. And what will always be a\u00a0constant is how much we love and respect the people who were next to us\u00a0doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, it\u2019s time to step off the juggernaut, and Chalotra is reflective. \u201cThis character\u2019s in me and\u00a0I\u2019ve let her go. So it\u2019s not sad at all\u00a0really, it\u2019s a new beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n But first, there\u2019s the small matter of\u00a0the wrap party. You can\u2019t help but think she\u2019s earned it.<\/p>\n The first episode of season four of The\u00a0Witcher is on Netflix from 30 October.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is a bittersweet day for Anya Chalotra. On the one hand, The\u00a0Witcher, the fantasy epic in\u00a0which she has played super-sorcerer Yennefer of Vengerberg since 2018, is about to return for a fourth series. All the hard work she and hundreds of others have done can finally be seen by millions of fans worldwide. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[682,18531,12989,18532,7545,1189,10657,4385,859,779,1392,241,18530],"class_list":{"0":"post-31974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-anya","10":"tag-cavill","11":"tag-chalotra","12":"tag-fan","13":"tag-fantasy","14":"tag-goodbye","15":"tag-henry","16":"tag-ive","17":"tag-job","18":"tag-separate","19":"tag-show","20":"tag-witchers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}