The Witcher S3: What We Know About Jaskier's Rival Valdo Marx & Who Plays Him
Contains spoilers for "The Witcher" Season 3, Episodes 4 and 5 — "The Invitation" and "The Art of the Illusion"
Part 1 of Netflix's "The Witcher" Season 3 is finally upon us, and this time, it's not just Joey Batey's Jaskier who's bringing the exquisite attire and earworms. In keeping with the adaptation's willingness to bring characters or elements into the fold who/that are only ever alluded to in Andrzej Sapkowski's books, Episodes 4 and 5 see Jaskier face off with his one and only true rival.
While spouses and spurned lovers all over the Continent have a bone to pick with Jaskier (aka Dandelion), the bard has a chip on his shoulder for just one man: a troubadour from Cidaris named Valdo Marx. In both Sapkowski's "The Last Wish" and TV writer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich's episode "Bottled Appetites" (Season 1, Episode 5), Jaskier's first wish when he believes he has freed a djinn is for his Cidarisian foe to, as it's phrased in the series, "be struck down with apoplexy, and die." In the book, he comes up just once more, when Geralt and Yennefer are discussing the status of the newly escaped djinn, and Geralt describes Valdo as "a troubadour who considers my companion, also a poet and musician, a talentless wastrel who panders to the taste of the masses."
Despite his blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in the stories, fans have long had a fascination with the character (whom Dandelion also references in CD Projekt RED's "The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings"), so much so that he appears frequently in fanfic (see: Tumblr). Filling his boots would thus be no easy task, but luckily, the actor who portrays him — Nathan Armarkwei Laryea — is no stranger to the stage.
Nathan Armarkwei Laryea is one talented devil
In a 2020 interview with Actors Live Life, Nathan Armarkwei Laryea revealed that he was "currently out of work as an actor," though considering the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on the theater industry, this wasn't particularly surprising. Just a few months later, in January of 2021, he'd appear in Season 12, Episode 11 of "Doctor Who" ("Revolution of the Daleks"), and by 2023, well, you know the rest.
But although the actor is a relative newcomer to the small screen (in 2019, he appeared in an episode of "Doctors"), he's been making a name for himself on the British theater scene for years. The actor's lengthy list of credits includes portraying young Simba in the West End production of Disney's "The Lion King," Tybalt and Balthasar in "Romeo and Juliet" at Exeter Northcott, Hamlet in "Hamlet" at the National Theatre, and the Devil himself in the Almeida Theatre's 2023 production of Lulu Raczka's "Women, Beware the Devil." Time Out called Armarkwei Laryea's Devil "camply malevolent," adding, "It's not hard to see the shadow of Milton's heroic Satan informing the play's thinking."
Netflix made ample use of Armarkwei Laryea's vocal talents and stage experience for Season 3, and considering the central role his performance plays in Episode 5's timekeeping and multiperspectivity — and his delightfully antagonistic chemistry with Joey Batey — it seems unlikely we won't be seeing more of him.
In the meantime, newly acquainted fans who happen to live in the U.K. can catch Armarkwei Laryea in Michael R. Jackson's Tony Award-nominated musical comedy "A Strange Loop" at the Barbican Theatre in London.