The Witcher: Casting Upcoming Characters

10. Rience – Joe Cole

Rience is an angry young mage with a sadistic streak that works to find Ciri and is also generally a pain in the neck for Geralt, Yennefer and co. If it were not for the name and the fact that he is a mage, those yet to read the books would assume this character to be Cahir, given just how ruthless the Netflix version is.

Because of these newfound similarities, it is possible that Hissrich has swapped the two’s character arcs, making Rience the sympathetic figure.

As such, someone who can straddle that line of initially seeming like a complete villain but later appear far more human is needed, someone like Joe Cole. Cole did a wonderful job of depicting a similar arc in Gangs of London, where his a character, a newly promoted mob boss, was usually angry and cruel, but only cruel to a point.

That is what this Rience needs, though if Hissrich aims to put a more book-accurate interpretation to the screen, then Cole would simply be able to cross the line into full villainy. He would do a great job either way, basically.