“I seem to be typecast as ‘dirty’,” says Freya Allan with a grin. She starred as seemingly feral human survivor Mae in 2024’s Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes and for the past eight years, has played plucky Princess Ciri in Netflix’s The Witcher. As well as being the rightful heir to a throne that’s at the centre of a civil war, the “Lion Cub Of Cintra” possesses the sort of incredible magic powers that have inspired an ancient prophecy or two. It all sounds very impressive but it’s mostly meant Allan’s been covered in mud, blood and monster guts.
Take the recently released season four. After accidently teleporting away from her adoptive parents – the brooding bounty hunter Geralt (previously Henry Cavill, now hulking Aussie Liam Hemsworth) and badass sorcerer Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) – and surviving a gruelling desert trip, Ciri teams up with a band of murderous outlaws known as The Rats. As well as dispatching the occasional hellspawn, she gets involved with brutal bar brawls and daylight robbery. “Ciri’s no longer that innocent child we first met [in season one],” says Allan, holed up in a bougie central London hotel restaurant. “She’s trying to figure out who she is and that unfortunately involves making some mistakes along the way. It’s basically a heightened version of a typical coming of age.”
In the new episodes, which dropped on Netflix at the end of October, Ciri continues to kill after taking a human life for the first time at the end of season three, and she has her first sexual relationship with fellow Rat Mistle (Christelle Elwin). These two events have long been criticised by readers of Andrzej Sapkowski’s original The Witcher novels and caused similar levels of outrage with Netflix viewers. “There’s a lot of anger around Ciri behaving so differently, but there’s a war going on. Everyone’s just trying to survive however they can,” says Allan. “For me, it was just nice to not feel like the child of the show anymore.”
“I never expected young girls to watch The Witcher”
The season ended (spoiler alert) with Ciri rushing back to save her new chosen family from the clutches of professional Witcher slayer Leo Bonhart (Sharlto Copley). Rather than rescuing them in the nick of time, she fails miserably – Ciri gets captured and every Rat is butchered in surprisingly grisly fashion. “I’m so glad they went there,” says Allan, despite finding the scenes unpleasant to film. “There are sometimes certain things that Netflix is afraid to bring to life but I’m glad they stuck to the books for that. It’s such a pivotal part of Ciri’s journey. Unfortunately, she just doesn’t seem to get a break.”
Despite Ciri coming into her own across season four, Allan made sure she was out of the country when it aired, hoping to avoid the brunt of the feedback. “It was a scary one for everyone,” she explains. “There were a lot of big, terrifying changes so I removed myself from it as much as I could.
See, shortly before the third season of The Witcher premiered in 2023, Cavill announced he wouldn’t be returning. No reason for his departure was ever given, but it’s rumoured The Witcher fanboy clashed with showrunner Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich over how she was adapting the source material. Hemsworth was asked to step into Geralt’s tight leather trousers instead.
“Season three was a really difficult season for everyone,” says Allan. She didn’t get a heads up about Cavill quitting and only found out the day before the news went public, while on the set of Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes. “I cried because I wanted to finish the show with the guy that played my adoptive father.” It got her thinking about her own future. “For the first time, I was seeing what life away from The Witcher could look like and then the lead moves on…” She spent a “solid amount of time” battling about whether she’d follow in Cavill’s footsteps but ultimately decided to complete Ciri’s journey. “Once I’d made that choice, I made the most of every moment.”
To make the switch-up even more challenging, Ciri and Geralt barely cross paths in season four, beyond a couple of nightmarish visions. “It was very weird,” says Allan. In every scene where Ciri’s thinking about her sword-wielding father figure, Allan was picturing Cavill’s face. “He’s the Geralt I grew up with.”
Still, she and the rest of the cast made Hemsworth feel part of the family. After their first group readthrough in London, they went out for some drinks before an afterparty at Hemsworth’s. As well as talking about the show and the expectations around it, Allan admitted that she’d been a huge fan of The Hunger Games – even though she was Team Peeta (played by Josh Hutcherson) rather than Team Gale (Hemsworth) when it came to who should end up with Jennifer Lawrence’s iconic heroine Katniss. “Maybe that would be different now.”
Unlike a lot of streaming adaptations, The Witcher will get a proper conclusion with a fifth and final season. Filming has already wrapped and it’s expected to launch at some point in 2026. “I cried a lot [on the last day], but not as much as I expected to.”
Ever since she got the role, Allan’s used The Witcher novels for guidance but she really leaned on them for seasons four and five because Ciri’s story amps up in a major way. There were a couple of moments that she knew just needed to be included in the Netflix adaptation – and Allan wasn’t afraid to let Schmidt-Hissrich know. “I really want to give fans what they want,” she explains. “I’d also seen Henry, who was so knowledgeable and loyal to the books, push for certain lines to be included. When he left, I was inspired to take on that role.”
“That final season took everything out of me, but I feel so incredibly satisfied”
After being back in the UK for a couple of weeks, Allan’s seen the wide range of opinions that typically come with any high-profile adaptation. “The thing that’s surprised me most about season four is how many people have criticised things that are straight from the books.” She’s sometimes tempted to make a burner account and point this out on Reddit, but other fans have beaten her to it.
She’s also been surprised by the different types of people that have come up to her about The Witcher, especially after the launch of season four. “I never expected young girls to watch it. It’s reaching a wider group of people than I first imagined it would.” The secret, she believes, is the “strong, complicated female characters” that populate the world of The Witcher. “Ciri might be someone with powers and knows her way around a sword, but she’s also someone who’s experienced loss, heartbreak and trauma.”
Allan has spent a third of her life as Ciri and the set of The Witcher has been her drama school. She got the acting bug after making a room full of people laugh with her vegetarian wolf impression in a school nativity and by the time she was 14, was auditioning for Stranger Things. At 16, she was cast as Ciri and was thrown headfirst into the fantasy drama. The first couple of episodes see her entire family killed and her childhood castle burnt to the ground. “There was no easing into it.”
To help her prepare for all that loss, she spent hours listening to depressing music (The soundtracks for Snow White And The Huntsman, Testament Of Youth, One Day and ‘Deep In The Meadow’ from The Hunger Games) to help her cry on cue, a trick she learned from YouTube. “I don’t do that now,” she says. “After a while, playing Ciri just felt so easy because I really lived inside that character.”
Still, she’s happy with how Ciri’s story ends. “That final season took everything out of me, but I feel so incredibly satisfied.” Now, she’s excited about whatever comes next. “I want to be very intentional with my next move,” she says. “I’d quite like a role where I’m clean.”
‘The Witcher’ season four is out now via Netflix
Freya Allan photography:
Photographer: Bruno McGuffie
Styling: Davey Sutton
Hair: Bjorn Krischker
Makeup: Salome Osk Jonsdottir