Get those coins ready to toss to your Witcher, because apparently he’s going to be a lot chattier this season.
At the inagural WitcherCon on July 9, Henry Cavill, who plays the notoriously stoic witcher Geralt in Netflix’s The Witcher, sat down to talk about the series with reporter Josh Horowitz and answer some fan questions. He spoke at length about his character, and all of the goodies we can expect in season 2. But most importantly, he spoke about whether Geralt’s dialogue will expand beyond the occasional “hmph.”
Not Just a Grumpy Snowman
The Witcher‘s Geralt is a man of few words in season one. He’s a stoic, gruff kind of hero that just doesn’t seem to have much important to say. In an interview with Horowitz for WitcherCon, Cavill said he thought it was important for him to speak less, since he was a fish out of water.
“I played season 1 deliberately like that which was him in the wilds without the opportunity for vast wades of dialogue. I thought it best he speaks less because it looks like he thinks more. That was the intention then,” Cavill said.
However, with Geralt returning to his home turf at Kaer Morhen, Cavill figured it was time for him to open up a bit.
“But in the season 2 scenario, he is in Kaer Morhen, his home space, amongst the people he knows, and, in my opinion, I was to be verbose and be intellectual because that is what he is. He’s not a brute. For me, it was very important to bring Geralt as close to the books as the vision and plot would allow. And I wanted him to be more verbose and more intellectual and more representative of a man who has lived seventy years and has a philosophical lean. He can be mopey at times, but he is also wise. He has been around. He is a nice guy despite having moments of unpleasantness, and capable of extraordinary violence, but his intentions are pure. I wanted to reflect on that as much as possible.”
Geralt is a man who has lived through quite a bit and has decades of experience to share, but sometimes he came across as a bit of an ice cube in the first season.
“It is very easy to fall down the line of him being the grumpy snowman and there is a comedy aspect to that, and I wanted to lean away from it in Season 2,” Cavill elaborated.
Some Complicated Relationships
Cavill also spoke at length about his character’s relationships, primarily with his foster daughter, Ciri, and his former flame, Yennefer. He felt it was important to make Geralt a good, caring figure while also highlighting that he’s a little out of his element with parenthood.
“I wanted him to be warm. If not a father figure, then definitely an older brother figure and have this kind of caring nature to it. He is not going to be super soft because he has himself had a very hard life and she’s about to lead a very hard life. She is no longer a princess and so he is not going to be softening her up any further, but he is going straight down the line,” Cavill explained. “That was very important to me that Geralt has this sense of humor while also being tough and intellectual and wise and I tried to lean on it as much as possible when it came to the relationship with Cirilla.”
While Cavill dodged questions about the nature of Geralt’s relationship with the sorceress Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), he did note how their split would effect Geralt in the coming season.
“For me, it is important to draw from the source material and I wanted to keep it as close as possible to that. The loss of Yennefer is a great blow for Geralt, and it is something he buries deep, but he is a man of action, a wise man and his focus is Cirilla. He has lost plenty of people in his life, but he has a job to do and is focused more on being there for Cirilla.”
You can watch the entire interview yourself below and hear it from the man himself. Season 2 of The Witcherdebuts on Netflix on December 17, 2021.
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