New ‘Narnia’ Casting Reveals Polly Plummer Will Have Sisters
In an interesting addition to the story, Ava Jager has been cast as Violet, one of three new sisters to Polly Plummer in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming film adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew. What’s on Netflix was the first to report on the casting news.
According to a social media post by Jager’s talent agency, it appears that she was on set for multiple weeks. In the book, Polly’s mother is the only relative directly referenced in the text.
Earlier this year, NarniaWeb obtained a copy of the audition script distributed to actors reading for the role of Polly. The brief scene contained dialogue implying that Polly was an orphan—or at least claiming to be one—telling Digory, “I never met my great-grandfather, or my grandfather, or my father. Everyone I know is dead.” The dialogue is more likely to be a self-contained piece created for auditions than a page from Gerwig’s screenplay, but it may still hint at the state of Polly’s family relationships in the film.
Whether Violet and her sisters will simply help establish Polly’s home life and then disappear, or play a more significant role in the story, remains to be seen. However, according to What’s on Netflix, Jager is listed as “Polly’s sister 3,” perhaps suggesting that the character may not have a major role.
This adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew will be the first Narnia film written and directed by Greta Gerwig as part of Netflix’s adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ novels. It arrives in IMAX theatres on November 26th, 2026.
It’s hard to evaluate without any additional context, but I lean toward this not being a big deal. But makes you wonder why they thought Polly needed multiple siblings to begin with.
Maybe, they had so many actresses that they liked, that when they were auditioning they decided to add 3 other girls who were great as Polly’s sisters. I am not really worried about if they call her Polly’s sister 3, I will assume she doesn’t really have a huge role.
@Impending Doom, what an interesting idea you brought up. I have a feeling given this information about the three sisters in addition to in the book how you mentioned that “Polly’s mother is the only relative directly referenced in the text”, while factor the audition script where Polly mentioned how “I never met my great-grandfather, or my grandfather, or my father. Everyone I know is dead.” What if this set up is supposed to highlight a certain connection that Digory and Polly share as noted how the script in the audition is trying to build up. Think about it, what if Polly only family are her sisters and mother emphasizing a “maternal” environment as the paternal / father figure is missing or not present which can create like the connection on the shared sentiment of a lack of a father figure as in the book Digory is with his sick mother and eldest aunt Letty as his father is in India and his Uncle Andrew isn’t or not show a father figure type of person to nurture Digory as seen in the book. The lack of father figure while tackling other possible topics in the movie might help create an interesting, impactful interaction when Digory encounters and talks with Aslan who embodies such a figure. Also, maybe Polly having multiple siblings and a mother reflects a certain feeling of loneliness or isolation as the youngest to compare and connect how Digory given the current relatives he is living with are much older than him as he the youngest create this sense of loneliness that both characters could share.
Michael Apted’s “Dawn Treader” isn’t looking so bad now, eh? *wink*
@ Professor Digory I definitely agree that the idea of “loneliness” will be played up as a shared experience between Polly and Digory, which helps lead to their initial friendship.
I’m also thinking Polly’s mother could very well be played by Denise Gough. Hmmm….
@Impending Doom, why do I get the feeling when Denise Gough is playing “someone mean to children” when she was describing her character without revealing too much, such as how you mentioned, would play Polly’s mother but her personality would be describe as “mean or harsh” but in like a caring motherly way like she would be the type to yell at the kids to stop “kidding around and be serious of the reality of the harsh real-world” or something like that which could be a good topic the movie can tackling with regarding “childish endless possibility of the imagination/ optimism” versus the “harsh grounded reality that comes with maturity and growing up”.
I feel like we should have a post or something that addresses the possible topics/ themes Greta Gerwig is bring forth to create for this movie because based on the small leaks we have so far gives the energy of this film being very very layered in a lot of references and overarching themes, just like her previous movies. I feel we need a post or more posts dissecting all this to see what will be likely included in this film.
@Rosenquartz I’m happy to admit that Gerwig’s Narnia movie might be an awful adaptation. But I will say that it still at least has some potential purely on the basis that it’s yet to be released. Whereas Apted’s Dawn Treader will always be a lame, generic fantasy movie that stripped away all the best parts of Lewis’s book. A bad movie and a worse adaptation!
*wink*
Polly might end up living in a foster home with a bunch of foster kids
@Rosenquartz another one… Maybe u’re the biggest hater here.
Not sure why characters have to be added. Polly’s lonely life with no siblings adds to her friendship with Diggory. ‘If it ain’t broje don’t fix it!”
Using the name Violet does not help establish this in 1955. It belongs to the previous generation, not those who were children in the 1950s. Nor is the name Polly, of course, but as a nickname for Mary we can accept it. Using Violet is a pointless link to the Walden script of LWW.
I can accept that Polly is fostered or adopted, but somehow her independent activities don’t sound like a girl with sisters.
The deliberate end goal of all this, as far as I can tell:
In future years, when someone mentions Narnia, you’ll have to ask: Which version, the Lewis one or the Gerwig one?
Well said, Ian. It’s legit going to be come “which version? The actual version, or the Gerwig version?
Ian and Jake, I’m not sure the point you’re making is quite the slam dunk you think it is… That’s literally how people have always talked about Narnia. Book or movie? Disney’s version? Focus on the Family radio dramas? BBC mini-series? Animated version? It’s not some dystopian loss of culture — it’s just… media literacy. LOL.
The book does not mention whether Polly has siblings or not. I don’t think this is a major change. The only direct mention of her family implies that her mother and at least one other person (as the use of ‘they’ in this instance seems to be used as a plural) was present when she was late for dinner:
“She had got home late for her dinner, with her shoes and stockings very wet. And when *they* asked her where she had been and what on earth she had been doing, she said she had been out with Digory Kirke. Under further questioning she said she had got her feet wet in a pool of water, and that the pool was in a wood. Asked where the wood was, she said she didn’t know. Asked if it was in one of the parks, she said truthfully enough that she supposed it might be a sort of park. From all of this *Polly’s mother* got the idea that Polly had gone off, without telling anyone, to some part of London she didn’t know, and gone into a strange park and amused herself jumping into puddles. As a result she was told that she had been very naughty indeed and that she wouldn’t be allowed to play with “that Kirke boy” any more if anything of the sort ever happened again. Then she was given dinner with all the nice parts left out and sent to bed for two solid hours. It was a thing that happened to one quite often in those days.”
XX, no slam dunk, but it’s increasingly obvious that this won’t even be an adaptation in the traditional sense of the word. Every existing adaptation hit more or less the same narrative beats. This one has entirely new characters, a new setting, new story arcs, and more than likely new themes.
Rock and roll. MacNab and his housing developments. Gymnasiums and foxes. Whispers (from Netflix) of Gerwig reinventing the story, doing things we’ve never seen before.
Different isn’t necessarily bad. I’m not catastrophizing some loss of culture. Gerwig is encouragingly literate. I’m just worried she’s too ambitious.
Not a terrible change, to be sure. The book doesn’t say she DIDN’T have sisters as far as I can remember. Guessing they’re mean to her, driving her to seek out friendship elsewhere, hence meeting Digory…
Even though all the hints of additions could cause alarm, I am confident of Gerwig’s talent and skill – and her respect for Lewis. Therefore I am trying to keep an open mind and see what movie we get next year. I highly doubt we will have more kids than Polly and Digory going for the adventure to Charn and Narnia, since it is very clear in the book that it is an adventure with only the two of them. I assume the sisters will all have small roles.
It will be cool to see what part they play in the movie, but as of right now I don’t see why Polly would need three sisters. It now seems as if she has a rather large family, whereas in the book I thought it was pretty small, consisting only of her parents and maybe the maid. What are they changing?
Because turning important male characters into female characters isn’t enough, let’s add additional female characters that never existed! Lol
Why not just have an all female cast and be done with it?
I read the Narnian books as a child and joined the online fandom in the lead up to the first Walden film.
I hope the new fans of Narnia find this community, twenty years later, just as kind and welcoming; a respite from the increasingly cynical and uncivil world we live in.
If the sisters are all much older than Polly, then maybe she feels left out and befriends Digory. If they’re more the same age, they’ll have to invent a reason they aren’t involved in Polly’s adventures. I wonder if they’ll be like Edmund was, not believing Polly?
@Ian In future years, when someone mentions Narnia, you’ll have to ask: Which version, the Lewis one or the Gerwig one?
That’s great! That’s the point! Why make a new version if it’s just going to be an exact paint-by-numbers reproduction of the version before it? We already have the Lewis versions. We don’t need a second copy of them.
While I agree with many others that I currently don’t see why the storyline needs Polly to have sisters, I don’t think this has to be a big issue. There could be many reasons for them not to be so close to each other: Maybe they don’t get along well, yeah. But maybe there’s an age gap and her sisters don’t play with her anymore, maybe the sisters all go to boarding school, maybe Polly just gets along better with guys. Only because you have sisters, that doesn’t automatically mean that you only hang out with them – even if you get along well.
I really enjoyed the dynamics portrayed between the sisters in Gerwig’s Little Women and trust that she’ll integrate Polly’s sisters in a way that feels naturally.
It is ofc also possible that something of Jadis and her sister will be mirrored in Polly’s relationship with her sisters? I don’t know but I’m curious and these news make me feel neither more nor less positive about the movie!
Mtthwas: That’s a fair question. I think I’m trying to get at the fact that there’s more than one philosophy of adaptation.
Jackson’s adaptation of LoTR had significant differences from the novel, and people have debated how successfully it kept Tolkien’s vision intact. Still, Jackson told us what he was *trying* to do: “We made a promise to ourselves at the beginning of the process that we weren’t going to put any of our own politics, our own messages or our own themes into these movies. … In a way, we were trying to make these films for [Tolkien], not for ourselves.”
Jackson’s version was no paint-by-numbers, but he positioned himself as a *supportive co-creator* of Tolkien’s world, not a *rival reinterpreter* of it. Changes were made for the sake of converting the story to a new medium, not to aggressively assert Jackson’s name and presence into Middle-Earth.
It’s almost impossible to imagine Gerwig saying this about Narnia and Lewis. I don’t think she is intending to be a supportive co-creator alongside Lewis, but a *second creator* and rival interpreter to Lewis. There are many signs of this.
It would be interesting to get Gerwig’s take on Jackson’s quote. Maybe I’m wrong and she would agree. It would be heartening.
@Mtthwas, when I read the book, I do so pretty fast and I don’t have a super detailed picture in my head, just a broad one and I don’t imagine music or anything. So a faithful cinematic adaptation of the book would have quite a bit to offer me. Also, this might be controversial, but Greta Gerwig has only directed one movie (Little Women) that I find more than mildly appealing so I’m not really interested in seeing a random story from her that happens to have names from The Magician’s Nephew and nothing else.
Col. Klink, I don’t know how many times I have seen the movie Reepicheep quote, “We have nothing if not belief.” held out as an actual Lewis quote instead of attributing it to the movie. I think it is a bit much to blame Michael Apted for this, but it shows the way movies take precedent over books in popular culture.
Greta Gerwig has a lot of talent and her Narnia movie will likely be very artistic, but I do hope to one day also see one more similar to the books. I agree with you that reading it is not the same as seeing a production with music, sound effects, dramatic lighting, and cool sets and costumes.
Polly having sisters isn’t a big problem, but why are they adding sisters to Polly? I hope Netflix doesn’t ruin anything.