Sex Education star cast as Narnia's White Witch in Greta Gerwig's movie
Gerwig has reportedly found her evil spellcaster.
BAFTA winner Emma Mackey (Sex Education) has reportedly bagged the role of the White Witch in Netflix’s Narnia movie from filmmaker Greta Gerwig.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mackey will join Meryl Streep, who is in talks to play Aslan, and Daniel Craig, who is set to star as the uncle of Digory Kirke.
RadioTimes.com has reached out to Netflix for comment.
The film will reportedly adapt The Magician’s Nephew, the sixth book in the Narnia series from author CS Lewis, which tells the origin story of the magical world of Narnia.
The plot revolves around two children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, who discover Narnia through Digory's uncle’s magic – and cross paths with the evil White Witch (whose name is Jadis).
In an unusual move for Netflix, the film is getting an exclusive two-week Imax global run in 2026 in advance of the movie’s release on the streamer.
Netflix revealed in 2018 that it would develop new series and film projects based on CS Lewis’s hugely popular The Chronicles of Narnia series, and it was later announced that Gerwig had secured a deal with the streamer to write and direct at least two of those movies.
CS Lewis's novel series has been adapted multiple times in the past, including as an animated mini-series in 1979 and as a film series beginning with 2005’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe directed by Andrew Adamson.
The upcoming project will mark a reunion between Gerwig and Mackey, who previously collaborated on Gerwig’s Warner Bros phenomenon Barbie.
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Authors
Molly Moss is a Trends Writer for Radio Times, covering the latest trends across TV, film and more. She has an MA in Newspaper Journalism and has previously written for publications including The Guardian, The Times and The Sun Online.
