We’re finally getting closer to The Witcher Season 2 hitting Netflix, and there will be a lot of changes on the way. The biggest of these is that Geralt finally caught up with Ciri at the very end of the first season, and has taken over as the parental figure for the displaced princess. But, it turns out that series star Henry Cavill also had one big request for Geralt as the show headed into the second season: he wanted to talk more.
Everyone who enjoyed the bloody fantasy action of The Witcher in Season 1 can tell you that Geralt did a lot of things when we were first introduced to him. There was some bathing and general adventuring around with our beloved bard, Jaskier, but chief among his tasks was lots o’ fighting. As you might imagine, this does not usually lead to much speaking. When asked about Season 2, showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told The Hollywood Reporter that Henry Cavill had several ideas about what they could do, which included Geralt opening up a bit, and said:
A lot of the notes he was sending to me were about Geralt’s dialogue — could he, first of all, say more. Everybody came out of season one laughing and loving Geralt’s fuming. But Henry was saying that when you read the books you spend a lot of time in Geralt’s head. So how can we put that on the page? Meanwhile, I wanted to tell the story of him becoming a father figure to Ciri. So those two things coalesced wonderfully. He opens up to get Ciri to trust him, by speaking his mind and his heart more.
While Geralt certainly had some puzzle pieces to assemble over the course of the first season, which meant him engaging in a few conversations, he still spent most of his time swinging his sword around to dispense of both monsters and men. And, if you were to do the math and report that Cavill’s Geralt had dialogue which was half comprised of nothing but grunts and grumbles, that wouldn’t sound at all inconceivable.
As we know, though, the actor is a massive fan of the books and video games in The Witcher franchise, and it sounds like he was itching to show off more of Geralt’s personality (and, you know, his ability to form words) as seen in the source material for his second go-round as the former loner.
And, it seems as though that was an easy enough wish for the showrunner and her team to grant, because of Geralt now needing to form a relationship with Ciri. He’ll be training her to fight, trying to help her figure out her powers, and has taken her to Kaer Morhen (where he got his Witcher training) to help with that. As Lauren Schmidt Hissrich noted, he’s going to have to open up to Ciri to get the young woman to fully trust him, plus, he’s going to be joined by other Witchers from his past, which should lead to plenty of intriguing exchanges.
We’ll be able to hear more of Henry Cavill’s gruff Geralt voice when The Witcher Season 2 hits Netflix on December 17.
