Following over a year of unconfirmed reports that actor Joey Batey would join Netflix's The Witcher: Blood Origin, the singer and Witcher star recently made his first official appearance as part of the prequel series' cast.
Actor Lenny Henry, who plays an elven bard in the upcoming series, shared an image on social media featuring both himself and Batey at a press junket for the show. "The Witcher :Blood origin press junket- all day yesterday.. with this guy," Henry wrote. The image seemingly confirms that Batey will indeed play the bard Jaskier once again for Blood Origin.
Reports of Batey's involvement emerged back in October 2021, when it was speculated that he would narrate the then-six-part Netflix series. At the time, it was unknown if he would simply be providing a vocal performance or if he would appear in person at some point.
It was later reported that he would play a role in Blood Origin's framing story. The story would see Jaskier in a tavern, beginning to recite the tale of ancient elves to a large crowd. The plan was that he would be interrupted by an unknown elf, who would correct him and tell the bard and listeners that the events in Jaskier's song aren't entirely accurate and most likely exaggerated.
Since then it has been revealed that Jaskier will not, in fact, play the role of narrator. While the show will have one, it will be played by actor Minnie Driver, whose appearance was announced at this year's TUDUM event. She is playing an elven Seanchaí, which is described as an elven lore-keeper. It's currently unknown how much she will interact with Jaskier, if at all.
The Witcher: Blood Origin is a four-part limited series set 1,200 years before the events of the main show, around the time of the cataclysmic events known in Andrzej Sapkowski's novels as the Conjunction of the Spheres. The event wrought havoc across the Continent, allowing humans, magic and monsters to cross over from entirely separate universes and populate the land.
While the series does make use of the lore established in the novels, its setting and characters are entirely new, as the era is mentioned, but never explored in Sapkowski's novels. The show's main characters, Éile, played by Sophia Brown; Fjall, played by Laurence O'Fuarain and Scian, played by Michelle Yeoh; were created especially for the Netflix series.
The Witcher: Blood Origin is set to premiere on Dec. 25, only on Netflix.
Source: Twitter