The Witcher star Anya Chalotra in her gaming debut

More and more actors are starring in video game adaptations, although not many are going the other way.

But that’s what Anya Chalotra, who you may recognize from Netflix hit The Witcher, has done.

She’s swapped suits for a mo-cap suit in her starring role in the story-driven action-adventure Unknown 9: Awakening.

Anya plays Haroona, a character with supernatural, dimension-hopping powers on a quest to stop a mysterious group from changing the course of history.

Okay, maybe you’ve heard something similar before. But Anya says the role is to rewrite the story in other ways.

Set in 20th century India, the game is one of the few released by a major publisher with a South Asian protagonist.

“I haven’t explored that part of myself – that fierce part of myself – in a role yet,” Anya tells BBC Asian Network News.

Born in Wolverhampton, Anya is probably best known to audiences for her breakout role as Yennefer of Vengerberg in The Witcher.

The Netflix hit is expected to return next year, with season four starring new lead actor Liam Hemsworth.

Anya says the transition from live-action to shooting motion-capture sequences for a video game was intimidating at first.

“You step into ‘the volume’, as they call it,” she says, referring to the room where the recordings take place.

“You have a camera on your head and I thought, ‘How am I going to bring my process to this world?’

But as she settled into the role, she said she was surprised by the similarities to more traditional acting.

“We had a director who directed us like any other scene.

“And we take after take after take to try to get the best one.

“So it wasn’t as different as I thought it could be,” she says.

Anya says another thing she tries to bring into all her acting is her dual heritage: her father is English, her mother is Indian.

Like her character in the game, she says she “comes from two different worlds.”

‘Two strong worlds.

‘Taken to the mandir [Hindi place of worship] one day and Sunday school the next.

“I think that’s why acting has helped so much, but I’m still working on it and I think it will continue for a long time,” she says.

Anya says that audiences often see her characters in terms of just one side of her personality, but she doesn’t see it that way.

“I’m both. I’m not just one,” she says.

“I come with both – every character has both.

“Even though you and I talk about Haroona being an Indian woman. She has so much of me, the other side of me.’

Anya says throwing herself into complex female roles is an all-consuming task and it can be difficult to leave her characters behind when she’s done.

“To be honest, I’m still working on that,” she says.

“I struggle with it because you’re in the mindset for so long every day and even though I’m not a method actor, it does change you.

“And it strangely forms new ideas about yourself, because as this character you’re constantly practicing a habit or thought.”

But she has come up with a few methods.

“I take my hair and take a shower and I literally cleanse myself of a character,” she says.

“I try to move as much as possible around work, but that is difficult.”

Unknown 9: Awakening is part of an effort to launch a new franchise, with other subsequent work planned to build out the game’s universe.

With games companies looking to reach new audiences at a time when the industry is struggling, the game’s publisher, Bandai Namco, hopes the game will appeal to a wide range of people.

Centering a South Asian character could be one way to do that.

“That’s so exciting for me because I know I’ll go home and see how the girls in my family take up this game and be excited about what they see and who they play as,” says Anya.

‘I will feel elated. I will feel honored.’

But she also hopes that people from different backgrounds will join the experience.

“Being part of something that will hopefully be seen and played by thousands of people is all I want,” she says.

‘That people know how brilliant this world is: India and its culture.

“It’s a blessing to be a part of it.”

Listen to Ankur Desai’s show on BBC Asian Network live from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM Monday to Thursday – or listen back here.