The Witcher: Who Plays Yennefer And Why Is The Character Different In Season 3?
Although Netflix's "The Witcher" is named after the monster-hunting "witcher," Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), the series itself actually centers around three characters — those being Geralt, his "Child of Surprise" Ciri (Freya Allen), and his on-again-off-again lover, Yennefer of Vengerberg.
Yennefer is perhaps the most volatile and dangerous of the three; being an extremely powerful sorceress with access to the forbidden chaos of fire magic. Throughout the first three seasons of "The Witcher," Yennefer is played by actor Anya Chalotra. Chalotra first rose to prominence with her role in the BBC miniseries "Wanderlust," in which she plays a high school student named Jennifer Ashman. Outside of "The Witcher" and "Wanderlust," her only other television credits come from a small role in "The ABC Murders," and a voice-acting part for the animated series "Sherwood."
As such, it's fair to say that Yennefer of Vengerberg is the most prolific role of Anya Chalotra's entire career. It's also perhaps the hardest role she's ever tackled, particularly when you consider just how much the character has changed throughout the first three seasons of "The Witcher."
Yennefer changes dramatically from season to season
When we first meet her in Season 1 of "The Witcher," Yennefer is a deformed hunchback who is verbally and physically abused by her father, who eventually sells her to a sorceress named Tissaia de Vries (MyAna Buring). Tissaia brings Yennefer to study magic at the ancient school of Aretuza, where the neglected hunchback girl undergoes an agonizing transformation that requires her to sacrifice her fertility in exchange for great beauty.
In an interview with TheWrap, Anya Chalotra admitted that this transformation from a shy hunchback to a powerful sorceress was the biggest acting change of her career and that she could physically feel the shift in her performance due to the prosthetics she had to wear. "So before, I had the help of a back prosthetic and I had the jaw misalignment, so I had a mouthguard in my mouth. And all those things helped me and my movement," said Chalotra. "And then after transformation, I had the help of costumes and a corset and I felt a lot stronger."
Once again, Season 2 saw Yennefer undergoing another dramatic change in character and personality, having lost her ability to perform magic after using a forbidden fire spell at Sodden Hill. This is a new rock bottom for Yennefer, and in her hopeless desperation, she decides to sacrifice Ciri in order to regain her magical power. Thus, Season 2's Yennefer is presented as a wounded, wretched sorcerer who is willing to sacrifice the innocent in order to regain her power.
Yennefer changes again in Season 3, looking for forgiveness and trust from Ciri and Geralt
It's worth mentioning that the selfish, scheming version of Yennefer we met in "The Witcher" Season 2 was heavily criticized by fans of the "Witcher" book and video game franchise, since this change in her personality had no basis in the show's source material.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Lauren Hissrich acknowledged the explicit fan hatred towards Yennefer in Season 2 and asserted that Season 3 would work out a way to bring the character back into the good graces of both Geralt and Ciri. Anya Chalotra echoed these comments in a separate interview for Variety, asserting that Season 3 Yennefer is changing for the better. "After how we finished last season and that portrayal, she's got a lot of work to do," said Chalotra. "She's really got to make it up to Geralt and Ciri — or rather, prove that she can be trusted... I think a lot of ego has dropped at the end of last season, and so she's in a new phase of her life."
This latest shift in Yennefer's character is clear from the moment we start Season 3, Episode 1, as she laughs and bonds with Ciri during their magic lessons and desperately fights for Geralt's forgiveness while he refuses to speak to her. Yennefer of Vengerberg is a character who is defined by change, and as such it should come as no surprise that the sorceress we meet in Season 3 is hardly recognizable as the deformed girl from Season 1, nor the miserable traitor we met in Season 2.