‘The Witcher’ Showrunner On What She Learned From ‘Game Of Thrones’

“Game of Thrones” and “The Witcher” are an easy mix-up, given their literary parallels, yet there’s actually little the two share other than a genre. Netflix’s new dark fantasy has been likened to HBO’s previous adaption so much that Vice already had to release a public service announcement calling for all audiences to stop comparing “The Witcher” to “Game of Thrones.”

On relating these very comparisons, “The Witcher” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich sat down with Variety to talk about what “Game of Thrones” taught her. Unlike the David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (often referred to as D&D) approach, Hissrich opted for a more open fan communication by joining Twitter early and experiencing fans expectations (and anticipation) head on.

She said, “What I want people to know is that I love this franchise.”

Before working on “The Witcher,” Hissrich brought to life Netflix's Marvel shows “Daredevil” and “The Defenders,” both of which had avid fan followings. With “The Witcher,” Hissrich not only wanted to be front and center for all the varied fan reactions, but also wanted to tone down senseless violence and nudity.

“Personally it drives me crazy if there is gratuitous violence for the sake of shocking the audience, or if you’re having a conversation over here and two people in the background are just naked,” she explained. “I need to understand why they’re naked and ‘What does that say about the characters?’”

Though they may differ from each other in a variety of ways, “The Witcher” actually shares several behind the scenes “Game of Thrones” production artists, such as the same VFX team (Cinesite) and even a linguistics specialist, who brought Elder Speech to life on the new Netflix series. So, though the shows may differ in story beats, their creative ingenuity does go hand in hand in some capacities.

But, they are two very different series.

“The comedy is what separates ‘Witcher’ from a lot of other fantasy material like ‘Game of Thrones.’ It comes from an organic place which is that Andrzej Sapkowski is Polish and he was telling me a lot about what it was like to grow up in Poland at a time when their country was being constantly taken over by other countries, there was a lot of political turmoil, a lot of people died, a lot of conflict, and yet you still have to get up every day and put one foot in front of the other and continue on with your life.” Hissrich adds, “He said, ‘How do people deal with tragedy? They laugh.’”