Exclusive: Pierce Brosnan To Star In The Witcher Prequel Blood Origin
We've exclusively learned that Pierce Brosnan has a role in The Witcher: Blood Origin. Here are the details.
Update December 25, 2022: Pierce Brosnan did not end up in The Witcher: Blood Origin on Netflix. The series streamed on the platform in 2022
Following up on recent delays and rescheduling, production on The Witcher: Blood Origin is finally moving forward, with likely plans to begin filming later this summer. That means the studio has to make their final decisions when it comes to casting their Witcher spinoff series. So who is Netflix getting to lead their new show? Right now, our trusted and proven source says that the legendary Pierce Brosnan has been offered a lead role in the prequel.
The Witcher has been a huge hit for Netflix, so a prequel series was a natural next step to expand their offerings. While a fantasy series isn’t the normal fare for Pierce Brosnan, the actor has stepped out into a lot of different types of work in this latter part of his career. He’s worked on television and with Netflix. The Witcher: Blood Origin could be a space that gives him a lot of room to do what he loves to do: act.
Following his time as James Bond, there hasn’t been a production that really takes advantage of Pierce Brosnan as an actor. Mostly, he’s been in small roles. It’s easy to smile at the ever-charming Brosnan when he appears for a few lines in a romantic comedy like Mamma Mia, but shouldn’t a legend like Brosnan have more lines than that? Don’t audiences want to see Brosnan pushed further? Will The Witcher: Blood Origin be able to do that?
From what our source has shared, it sounds like Pierce Brosnan will be getting a larger role. And while it’s a shame that larger roles are harder to come by when an actor is in his 60s, that’s the reality for many in Hollywood. This may be one of the rare opportunities where Pierce Brosnan can dig in and give us a chance to see him play things up. Hopefully, if The Witcher: Blood Origin makes a solid deal that the actor can sign on for, they’ll also make sure to give the former James Bond the kind of freedom and screen time fans would like to see.
Pierce Brosnan has spoken about where his career is at in this stage during interviews. With The Guardian, he said, “I am a man of 67 years now and the parts that will come to me will be the parts of the elder, the parts of the comedic turn.” On a fantasy series like The Witcher: Blood Origin, it sounds like he’ll be playing the part of the elder.
It would be fair to speculate that since the series is going to focus on how the first Witcher comes to be, his character may either be someone mentoring that Witcher through these transitions, or, an elder who is in opposition to our younger characters. While an “evil” character for Brosnan is less common, it’s something we’ve gotten to see a bit of in the past, and would be one of the more fun possibilities for his character on a Witcher spinoff series.
When talking to The Guardian about his career, Pierce Brosnan also said that he has no desire to retire, which indicates that he’s willing to take the parts that come his way. He’s worked with Netflix recently on Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, and he was recently in the television series The Son, proving that something like a Netflix television series may be in his sphere of interest at this point in his career. Hopefully, Brosnan will be the key to making the prequel series as epic as fans are hoping.
