The Witcher’s sorceress Sabrina in real life

“People say, ‘It’s luck – the stars align’, but I think the harder you work, the more stars are going to be in your sky,” says Therica, which sets the tone for our invigorating conversation. One which she imbues with power and strength, showcased through her infectious work ethic and limitless ambition.

She has this matchless, captivating beauty, which at the time of our interview is made even more apparent by her tousled updo and choice of outfit. She’s wearing a one-shoulder, décolletage-honouring top, which puts her angelic smile and impossible bone structure in full view. And her effortless allure bears resemblance to her character Sabrina in The Witcher (dreamt up by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski); she’s just a toned-down, real-life version.

“She’s like the Samantha Jones of the fantasy world,” Therica says when describing her character. “She’s unbelievably confident and unbelievably sexual. She knows what she has and she’s willing to use her body and her sexuality to get what she wants. She’s so driven, she’s so competitive, she always wants to be the best.” As for how that relates to her: “I don’t think I’m as confident or as self-assured as [Sabrina], but playing her has been incredibly empowering, because you have to wake up and believe that is who you are, that you have those qualities, that you can seduce and be this firepower.”

Therica’s own journey into acting was fuelled by sheer determination. After attending City of London School for Girls, she applied for a foundation course at RADA on a whim. “It changed my whole world,” she enthuses. And she persisted to pursue a career where many are constantly told that only a small minority make it. “I went to every casting director workshop, every course, every class – everything that I could get my hands on, I swear I’ve done it,” she assures.

If Therica wasn’t getting signed by agents, her approach was to personally go in to see casting directors, to try and get an agent that way. “I wrote to Henry Cavill’s production company three years before I even did The Witcher [and was] like, ‘I love you, I’d love to work with you”. (Cavill plays The Witcher’s protagonist Geralt of Rivia). The grafting paid off: “My life completely changed in five days,” Therica recalls, referring to the moment she learnt that she had got the part of Sabrina. And it was a faster turnaround than you might expect, not least because she was made for this role. Casting director Sophie Holland, who she met on the Monday (a few days after handing in her audition tape), clearly felt the same way because by Tuesday lunchtime Therica was handed the part. “It was a mad experience – things that dreams are made of,” she says happily.

Better yet, it’s a role that she’ll be reprising for season two. “There’s nothing about that project that I didn’t love and so to be back for another season blew my mind – it broke my heart in all the best ways, so I’m incredibly grateful and very happy,” she enthuses. “And from what I’ve seen, I think that people will love season two even more than season one – there’s amazing things coming for you guys,” she adds. (As if I wasn’t excited enough already. In case you didn’t know, season two premieres on 17 December 2021 – take note!).

“I’m honestly living my dream life because three years ago I would have never imagined going in for some of these parts,” Therica reveals. And she thanks her “incredible” management team – Olivia Bell in the UK and Authentic Talent in America, the latter of whom she flew out to meet in New York. “They are just a girl’s best friend,” she says dotingly. “They really nurture, support and love me and put me [forward] for roles that, quite honestly, are beyond my wildest dreams.

Relentlessness aside, I’m curious to know how she dealt with self-doubt and managed to persevere on her arduous journey to the big screen. She says it was her mum, a GP for The Royal London Hospital, who influenced her early acting pursuits. “I used to say to her, ‘Oh, this many people have got into this drama school and they only have this many places’, and she used to always say, ‘Well, why can’t that be you, Therica? Why can’t you have one of those places?’ So she really drummed into me that I could be the exception, and I think that is an amazing belief to instil in someone.”

Therica says that she picked up her parents’ very strong work ethic just from being around them and watching them work “incredibly hard”. They showed her the importance of “doing something that you love, that you wake up each morning and you just want to do. I think that when you have those things, you find ways to make it work, even when it seems impossible to other people”.

That said, I wonder what her career plan B would have been. “Growing up I watched Suits and I really wanted to be a lawyer, so I don’t know what that says about me,” she jokes, before telling me she’s “looked at every career under the sun”. She’s even considered working in fashion. This leads me to ask her which designer she would love to wear to her next premiere. “What are you doing to me?” she jokes, before revealing, “I love, with a passion, Vivienne Westwood. I love the way that she structures dresses and corsets – they look so beautiful on women. I think they really show off the feminine physique in a modest way. I would love to get my hands on one of her dresses.”

As for what she wore to The Witcher premiere: “I had on this very beautiful one-shoulder glittery down, (by Aidan Mattox), which was really amazing.” But I soon find out that the premiere night itself wasn’t all plain sailing. She had collapsed the day before (for reasons unbeknown to her) and hit her nose badly, leaving a sizeable black bruise on her face. “It was awful; luckily, I had the best glam team in the world because they just packed on concealer and powder.”

It also helps that her and best friend Anna Shaffer, aka sorceress Triss Merigold, who she met on The Witcher set, got ready together in the hotel. The two are so close that Therica admits, “I’d probably have her as maid of honour at my wedding”. In fact, The Witcher has also led to her finding girlfriends in co-stars Anya Chalotra and Mimi Ndiweni (who play sorceresses Yennefer and Fringilla). And when she describes her character’s “frenemy” relationship with Yennefer, it resonates with her own appreciation for forming strong female bonds. “As much as Sabrina and Yennefer have this kind of competitive edge, she would never ever want to hurt Yennefer. She’ll always stand up and fight [for her] when that needs to happen; all of [the rage] goes in the bin as soon as she needs to be there for her girls,” she explains.

Now back to that fall; it must have felt traumatic whilst preparing for her debut at a blockbuster premiere. “They were taking photos of me and I was meant to be looking my very best, but I was like, ‘Oh my god, are they going to be able to see [my bruise] in the flash?’ But I really felt like a million dollars, and it was just the most crazy experience being at Leicester Square with Henry, Anya and everyone just taking these photos – it was wild,” she recalls. “I loved, loved, loved the shoes,” she adds. Her selection for the evening was a pair of classic crystal-trimmed Jimmy Choos. “I never wanted to take them off!” she says with a hearty giggle.

But despite her glamorous disposition on camera, Therica’s everyday dress couldn’t be further from that. “I’m a baggy trouser girl,” she says. “[Sabrina] is a complete glamour puss and I’m definitely a no make-up, messy hair kind of girl.” Describing her general style as “forever changing”, she says, “What’s amazing about being an actress is that you get to put your feet into so many different shoes and change up your style to fit the character you’re playing. Because of that, I feel like I can mould into loads of different styles.”

The costumes in The Witcher, which she describes as “a second skin” are anything but low-key. I ask her to pick a favourite: “The teal costume that you see at the end of episode eight in season one, I cried putting it on; I’ve never felt so beautiful in my life – it fitted me perfectly. As a woman with curves, I sometimes struggle with new dresses, but with that one, it didn’t matter if I was out of make-up or my hair was a mess – I felt like a million dollars,” she says, likening it to how she imagines the perfect wedding dress would feel on.

“However, I do have to say it’s a tie because there’s another dress that I wear in season two that is absolutely stunning and horrendously beautiful,” she reveals. She adds how lucky she felt to be asked what she wanted to wear and to have some input with her character’s wardrobe.

And the costumes were about more than just looking glamorous. “In the first season, I did archery, so the dress had to be able to move in certain ways.” Plus, for a stunt scene in the season finale, she required a harness, which also had to be worked into her outfit. “There were loads of things that this costume had to be able to do. It was a feat for the costume designers to make it happen – they’re all very talented.”

I tell Therica that she aced her character, to which she humbly replies, “That actually means the world to me so thank you.” I then task her with the challenge of telling me which three actresses she would pick to work with next, if she had the choice. “Viola Davis. She’s an absolute powerhouse of a woman; I think she’s fantastic. I would cry just being in a room with her – I think she’s unbelievable. Sandra Oh – I’ve just watched Grey’s Anatomy and I think she brings something so different to the screen, this kind of strength. And she has this amazing ability to also be incredibly vulnerable as well. Just from watching her interviews, she seems bloody fantastic. And then it would have to be Nicole Kidman. Her work is just fantastic. I watched her from Moulin Rouge; I know all the steps to the dances – I learnt one side and then the other. It’s really amazing that as she’s grown, her roles have got increasingly warm, more diverse and more exciting, and her acting has grown with her.”

Moving onto the dancing scenes in The Witcher: “I don’t want to show off but I was a cheerleader in my third year of uni,” she jokes. “My dance partner was amazing; we used to meet up in the hotel and dance in different rooms and just practice the hell out of it. But I wouldn’t say that I was natural at doing it.”

And it’s clear that for Therica, constantly re-evaluating herself and her development comes naturally, so we get onto what it was like watching herself back. “I met up with a friend and we sat and drank wine,” she tells me. As for what she thinks of her own performance: “There’s always a bit of, ‘Oh, god, what did I do?’. Sometimes you look back at the choices that you made and you’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t think that works, maybe I would have done something differently in that moment’ – but you just take it and you go, ‘OK, this is what I learned from that, this is what I really liked. Then you kind of put it into practice.”

Referring specifically to The Witcher, she says, “There is an overwhelming sense of pride; you’re just sort of in awe of what the team has produced, especially when it comes down to special effects. You don’t really know what it’s going to look like when you’re, say, firing arrows, but they have a vision and they were really amazing at executing it.”

And despite the upheaval caused by the pandemic, Therica’s unshakable tenacity remains. “I think it’s really important to keep working, and I know that as soon as I’ve got something, I’m reaching for the next thing. I think it’s really important just to be on top of everything,” says Therica, whose week is usually packed with screen acting classes, casting director workshops, theatre studies and lessons with an acting coach.

“In my mind, I worked so hard before I got that self-tape for Witcher, and I would never have got it if I hadn’t put in that much work; I made myself ready. So my mind is about readying myself and putting myself into place for any opportunity that comes along. It’s [never] an opportunity missed. Say I don’t get it, I can always learn from it and put that into practice so it doesn’t happen again.”