The Witcher turned out to be far more enjoyable than it ever needed to be. The series has already spawned an anime movie (Nightmare of the Wolf) and a prequel series (Blood Origin) in the works, along with other planned spinoffs, including an animated, family-friendly series. The flagship series will deliver Season 2 in a little over a month, and everything is coming up grunty. Well, except for the fact that Geralt will talk more and grunt less this time around, but the point is this: The Witcher fans are lucky to have Henry Cavill in the role, and he’s lucky to have the role. He’s a tried-and-true nerd and a huge fan of the video games, and by god, he wanted this role.
However, the powers that be were apparently not so keen to give Cavill this role for awhile. Showrunner Lauren Schmidt-Hissrich previously revealed (to Hollywood Reporter) that she met with Henry and loved his enthusiasm, but she couldn’t offer him the job because scripts didn’t exist yet. Then she, uh, auditioned “207 other potential Geralts,” yet “what I realized is that I started to have Henry’s voice in my head as Geralt.” At the time, she added, “When I called him I was really embarrassed. I told him I was so sorry, I had to see a whole bunch of other people to know it was you and he was so grateful for that because it really meant he was meant to be Geralt.”
Well. Henry sat down with Hollywood Reporter and clarified a bit to explain that, when that call came, his agent kind-of tried to talk him out of that possibly-too-late audition. Mind you, Henry was still down, but still, a close call:
“I pursued, pursued, pursued,” Cavill says of the role. “A couple months after they had gone through their casting process, my agent called and said, ‘They’ve asked you do an audition — you don’t have to do this.’ I’m like, ‘I’ll do it.’ They said, ‘Really? Are you sure?’ I said, ‘Of course. It’s The Witcher.'”
Everything worked out as it should have worked out, but boy, what a roundabout way to get there. Cavill added that he’s “absolutely” down with completing Hissrich’s intent for seven seasons (or more), and he’s good with it, “as long as we can keep telling great stories which honor [author Andrzej] Sapkowski’s work.”
The full Hollywood Reporter piece is well worth reading, partially because it paints Henry as the best candidate to be the next James Bond, without even trying. Yet I really don’t think, you know, that Henry’s got the time to pick up the martini? He’s doing more Enola Holmes and much more of The Witcher and The Highlander reboot, and the list goes on. Dude’s deservedly busy, and he’s also gotta have time to play his video games.
The Witcher returns to The Continent on Friday December 17th.
(Via Hollywood Reporter)
