Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, who grew up in Westerville, began her career on "The West Wing." Now, she is among very few women at the helm of fantasy television dramas.

In the month since "The Witcher" debuted on Netflix, the spotlight has yet to fade on showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich.

The Westerville native has participated in countless interviews about the mythical world she brought to the small screen on Dec. 20 with eight episodes and manages an active Twitter profile that has amassed more than 78,000 followers.

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Schmidt Hissrich’s high-profile, behind-the-scenes role — a rarity for women in Hollywood — comes after two decades of working in television, but it almost didn’t happen. When Netflix — where she already had worked as a producer and writer on properties such as "Daredevil," "The Defenders" and "The Umbrella Academy" — offered her the top job on the show, her answer might have been unexpected.

She said no.

Schmidt Hissrich was vaguely familiar with the "Witcher" lore created by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, having read the first in his series of fantasy novels, "The Last Wish," a year before Netflix gauged her interest. But leading a show based on a franchise with seven books and three critically acclaimed video games to its name? Surely, she thought, someone else was better up to that task.

"They had such a wildly passionate fan base, and I wanted to make sure whoever was writing the series would be able to honor that," Schmidt Hissrich, 41, said in an phone interview from London, where she was preparing to shoot Season 2. "I thought the person writing the series should be a huge fan of fantasy, should be fully entrenched, should be a big geek and be able to please those fans."

After an executive encouraged her to explore the series further, she said she read Sapkowski’s next two books — "Sword of Destiny" and "Blood of Elves" — and came to a realization:

Yes, the story is filled with magic, dragons and warring kingdoms. But Schmidt Hissrich said she was surprised to learn that at its core, it is a tale of the need for human connection among the story’s three main protagonists — a monster-hunter known as a witcher, played by Henry Cavill; a princess with magical abilities (Freya Allen); and a powerful sorceress (Anya Chalotra).

"That was a story that appealed to me and I stepped back and realized that’s also a story I thought I could write, and write well," said Schmidt Hissrich, who is the credited writer on both the season 1 premier and finale.

Netflix’s executives, it seems, are pleased with her vision for the series.

"It was clear that she had both the passion and inspiration to deliver a series that fans around the world would fall in love with," Kelly Luegenbiehl, vice president of international originals for Netflix, said in an email.

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Schmidt Hissrich’s role as showrunner — meaning she is in charge of hiring decisions and the show’s narrative arc — puts her in a select company of women heading fantasy series, including Sera Gamble ("The Magicians," "Supernatural") and Julie Plec ("The Vampire Diaries," "The Originals," "Legacies.")

Across all television genres, women accounted for 31% of individuals working in key behind-the-scenes positions for the 2018-19 season, according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film at San Diego State University.

Schmidt Hissrich said her ascension to the position of showrunner in a male-dominated industry is the result of hard work and perseverance. It’s her opinion that women need more opportunities at the beginning of their careers — as she had — and it’s a principle she said she honors by filling the "Witcher" writers’ room with people of all genders, races and backgrounds.

"I personally haven’t experienced a lot of obstacles that being a woman has set in my path, but I know a lot of people have," Schmidt Hissrich said. "I think part of the reason I didn’t run into a lot of struggles is because I started at the bottom and worked my way up."

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Schmidt Hissrich and her brother, Erik Schmidt, were raised in Westerville by parents Garry Schmidt and Marky Willis Adams. Her mother recalls a precocious young girl with a penchant for language — she said her daughter "published" her first book when she was in second grade.

"She has always been an avid reader and writer," said Willis Adams, 69, who remarried seven years ago after she and Garry Schmidt divorced.

A graduate of Westerville North High School, Schmidt Hissrich traveled to Los Angeles between her junior and senior years at Wittenberg University in Springfield, where a family friend set her up with an internship answering phones on a new television show. The show turned out to be "The West Wing," NBC’s political drama created by Aaron Sorkin.

The experience exposed the English literature major to an entirely new world of creative writing.

"I had never even thought about screenwriting as a career path" Schmidt Hissrich said. "My eyes were opened to this entirely new form of writing."

After graduating in 2000, she returned to L.A. to work on "The West Wing" before its second season aired that fall. She remained with the series over its seven-season run, working her way up to writer, before moving on to other television shows.

"I have worked at every level of television writing and have had experiences on so many different shows," said Schmidt Hissrich, who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. "I felt like by the time I was handed a show of my own, I knew a lot."

Even though fantasy isn’t her genre of choice, Willis Adams said she viewed the entire first season of "The Witcher" with her husband, Donn Adams.

"There are times I have to look away if it's a little too bloody or the monsters are a little too scary," she said.

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Netflix renewed "The Witcher" for a second season before the first even aired, with a planned release in 2021. Schmidt Hissrich said she is excited for what’s to come — for however long it lasts.

"I am fully on board ‘The Witcher’ train right now," she said.

elagatta@dispatch.com

@EricLagatta