Henry Cavill isn’t a man who does things in half measures. The actor’s new series, The Witcher, was so important to him he hounded down the showrunner before the show even had a full script to throw his name into the hat. He also trained, trained, and trained some more for the role.
Having gotten fit for the DCEU, Henry Cavill is an actor who knows a thing or two about dedication, but for The Witcher it went above and beyond. In fact, Cavill confirmed at Comic-Con 2019 in San Diego that he did all of his own stunts for the new Netflix show, revealing "it's correct" he did all the tough work to play Geralt.
That is correct. It’s very important to me that when you see Geralt on screen that you know it’s Geralt. And that it’s not ‘some guy’ that can do the Geralt stuff and I’m just the actor. For me, the character involves all of that.
The actor was a fan of the books written by Andrzej Sapkowski as well as the numerous projects the popular novels have spawned, including video games. In short, he made it clear over and over again at Comic-Con that he would do whatever it took to get the project. Apparently, once he did land the role of Geralt, it was also important for him to do the character justice.
It even sounds like this extends beyond just generally making stunts a priority in The Witcher. Henry Cavil went on to say that he became proficient with a sword specifically so he could convincingly act his way through Geralt’s sword-fighting scenes in The Witcher, as well.
I spent all of my free time when I wasn’t on set – and even when I was on set – with a sword in my hand. It was just getting used to the weight of the sword, using it day in and day out. I had three swords where I lived. I had four at work and it was just nonstop. Practice, practice, practice.
A few months ago, Cavill shared an image of him getting fit and ready to go for The Witcher and he looked like he was already giving his all to the role at that point. Some months later, he and the rest of the cast seem pumped for fans to see the series brought to life on the small screen.
The series has progressed quite a bit since then, and fans were treated to a clip from the new Netflix show in which a very blonde Henry Cavill as Geralt fights many foes in a throne room, eventually crossing swords with the badass Yennifer, played by Anya Chalotra. The first trailer for the series has also dropped, and can give you some indication of what you’d be getting into if you choose to stream The Witcher.
Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich also told CinemaBlend's Laura Hurley these scenes will be par for the course heading into Season 1 of The Witcher.
You will be seeing a lot of fighting, which means that you are seeing a lot of Henry. So Henry did not have a stunt double. He does all of his own work. Any time you see him, it's really him. Which means that he trained non-stop. Always had swords in his hand. Was always sort of in the training room with his team. But part of what we had to do was then was adapt the fighting style to Henry. You read in the books, it's all about pirouetting and dancing, and then you take a 6'3" man and you say 'Pirouette!' So, it really was about finding the right balance between what we would read that Geralt does in the books and what Henry does, and sort of finding and marrying those things together. Because again, we wanted to make sure that he was the best sort of portrayer of the fighting.
You’ll be able to catch Henry Cavil sadly not "pirouetting" when The Witcher hits streaming later this year. Sadly, it does not have an official release date yet from Netflix, but it has wrapped production, and you can keep an eye on what Netflix has coming with our release schedule.
