Henry Cavill as The Witcher 💘
Henry Cavill, as anyone who has seen him in the flesh will tell you, is quite a commanding presence. When we meet, at a luxurious hotel suite in central London, he is sitting in a plush armchair as an enormous dog (Kal, his fluffy, black-and-white American Akita) paces back and forth in front of him. Cavill is six-foot-two and weighs 15 stone. His biceps are wider than most people’s thighs. So when he stands up to greet us, honestly, we’re kind of intimidated. It feels a bit like we have an audience with a king in his throne room.
We’re here to talk about the return of hit fantasy series The Witcher, based on Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s best-selling books – which only adds to the atmosphere. Cavill plays Geralt of Rivia, who is not a king – but he might as well be. Grouchy and difficult to deal with, the show’s silver-haired, solitary monster hunter is used to getting what he wants. Preferring to grunt expletives at or brawl with those he encounters, Geralt travels the fictional world of The Continent with his trusty steed Roach, decapitating beasties and shagging maidens. That is, until destiny dictates he track down and protect a young, orphaned princess called Ciri, who’s being pursued by an enemy.
At the end of season one, they finally met – but elsewhere, powerful sorcerer and Geralt’s main love interest Yennefer was blown up by her own spell while battling foreign invaders. Season two lands on Netflix tomorrow (December 17).
“This is a very different Geralt to last time,” says Cavill. “I pushed really hard to make sure it wasn’t all conflict, and that we see some three-dimensional depth to this character. There’s less of the grumpy snowman this time.” Indeed, for most of the six episodes we’ve seen, the gravel-voiced Gandalf is playing happy families up in some mountains. They’re hiding out with Geralt’s fellow witchers – also grumpy, also excellent at beating up monsters. As the new series progresses, he discovers a softer, more sensitive side to himself that informs his new, parental relationship with Ciri.
“As much as Geralt is fantastically good at killing things, it’s wonderful to see this gentle bond between [he and Ciri],” says Cavill. “We see more of the wisdom of the character. We see him trying to draw information out rather than just demanding it or shouting and fighting.”
That said, there is still plenty of fighting in the new episodes – and plenty of opportunities to watch Cavill do what he does best. Known for playing Superman in four blockbuster DC films, and an impressive cameo opposite Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Fallout, he has cultivated an action hero persona despite not being a household name. You would see him on a billboard, but less often on a magazine cover (unless it’s Men’s Health).
He is revered in the industry for his intense commitment to the job. For one scene in Fallout, Cavill needed to hang off the side of a military helicopter, battling below-zero temperatures while firing a heavy machine gun with one hand. It took multiple takes to get right. He says he is used to going through his “mental boundary”, but it sometimes gets him into trouble when he pushes too hard. On The Witcher, it could have ended his career.
“I was sprinting through the woods for a scene [in season two],” he says, clapping his hands together like a dad getting ready to tell his kids a story. “They had this fake snow down which is pretty slippery. I’d done one take already, maybe two takes, and because they make adjustments [between takes], I’d started to cool down. Then when I started running again my foot hit a bit of deadwood and it collapsed. I massively over-contracted my hamstring and tore it.”
