Freya Allan's role as Princess Ciri on Netflix's original series The Witcher is undoubtedly
the breakout moment of her career.
At only 18 years old, Allan's only just getting started, but she already had some extraordinarily
good luck even before landing this major gig.
Born in Oxfordshire, England in 2001, Allan told Digital Spy that she underwent a confusing
audition process for The Witcher, as she didn't really know she was auditioning to portray
Ciri, and initially thought she landed a smaller part.
Now that she's settled into the starring role, she's apparently beloved by the production
team.
Director Marc Jobst took a moment to lavish her with praise in a quick question-and-answer
session on twitter, describing her portrayal of Ciri as, quote, "luminous...fierce, charismatic,
with the presence and strength of an old soul."
"Nothing for you to be concerned about."
"Your dismissive tone says it is."
Allan's screen presence is indeed powerful, and many of you Witcher watchers at home have
probably scratched your head and wondered where you've seen the actress before.
While her career has only just taken off in the past year, Allan may look familiar to
many.
After attending the same prestigious academy as Harry Potter franchise icon Emma Watson,
the Headington School in Oxford, Allan began her artistic secondary education at the prestigious
National Film and Television School in Buckinghamshire.
From there, Allan went on to study at the Art University Bournemouth and starred in
a short film called Captain Fierce.
In the short, Allan plays Linda, a girl who can only meet up with her friend Danny once
a year because her family is part of a traveling carnival.
They find an abandoned, damaged boat and decide to fix it so they can run off together.
The short appears to have been uploaded to YouTube as part of the hype building up around
The Witcher's casting announcements, as many comments on the video speak positively about
Allan's pending role as Ciri.
Before being taken under the wing of Henry Cavill's Geralt of Rivia on The Witcher, Allan's
first big role was as a younger version of martial arts expert Minerva, a major character
on AMC's action series Into the Badlands.
The single episode in which Allan appeared includes a flashback to when a teenage Minerva
was enslaved by one of the show's post-apocalyptic Barons.
Following her short stint on Into the Badlands, she landed a small role on an installment
of the BBC's 2019 miniseries adaptation of the beloved sci-fi novel War of the Worlds.
Going from those roles to standing front and center as part of The Witcher's major character
triad is one heck of a quantum leap, but that momentum is here to stay for at least the
next couple of years.
The Witcher was greenlit for a second season even before all eight episodes went live on
Netflix, so that's a great sure thing for Allan's future.
However, Allan's early career renaissance doesn't stop there.
In 2020, Freya Allan will make her feature film debut in the action thriller Gunpowder
Milkshake.
Details on the plot of Gunpowder Milkshake are still slim, and there's no trailer just
yet, but Allan will once again play a younger counterpart of the protagonist, in this case,
Karen Gillan's lead character Eva.
Gillan will co-star alongside Game of Thrones alum Lena Headey as a mother-daughter assassin
duo out to end the head of a gang for whom they used to kill.
Another woman-in-training for the warrior class should feel nice and familiar for Allan
now, right?
Here's hoping Allan will be a fresh new leader on the upward swing of this trend of female-led
original action films.
Allan's other project, which is still in pre-production, is a British program for Sky Media's new foray
into original programming: a six-episode miniseries entitled The Third Day, which is about residents
of a mysterious island who are set on preserving their traditions at any cost.
Of all the actress' forthcoming offerings, The Witcher season 2 is the furthest out,
and we're sure she'll land a few more high-profile gigs in the meantime, following her star-making
turn.
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