Henry Cavill Says He Improvised That Heart-Wrenching Death Scene in 'The Witcher'
The Witcher season 2 spoilers follow.
Henry Cavill is a Witcher superfan. And no, we don't mean he just casually reads the books. This is the man who tirelessly campaigned to become The Witcher on screen. When he's not training or starring in blockbuster movies, Henry replays the games over and over on the hardest possible setting.
And hell, if The Witcher had come around before Superman made him a megastar, Cavill would have probably named his dog Roach instead of Kal.
So when even Henry says season one of The Witcher was "tricky" to keep up with, you should take him at his word. Much of the criticism leveled at this show so far has revolved around those confusing timelines that slosh together like the water in a Witcher's bathtub — to which Henry says, "That's absolutely fair."
"It's tough to keep track of those things, especially when you're following three different characters. Even if you know the lore, it's two of the characters in a completely original story. To keep up with it is tricky."
But season two is a different beast entirely. Like a Jaskier fan sitting front row at his latest gig, the writers listened hard to these critiques, and in response, they've developed a far more linear approach to the storytelling in season two. "It's a bit leaner now," says Henry. "It's a bit more clear. And I think that's a good thing."
Behind the scenes was a different story though. After two COVID-related production delays hit season two early on, Cavill tore his hamstring on set in December 2020. With all this going on, you'd think that the cast might have struggled to keep up with their new character arcs still, even if they are "a bit leaner" this time round.
"Not so much, really," says Henry. "I would say that Geralt has a fairly straightforward storyline for season two, in comparison to Cirilia and Yennefer." Instead, what Cavill struggled with most was the lack of human connection on set.
"You can't shake people's hands. You can't hug them. And you can't see their faces. They can see my face, but I can't see their face, so I'm missing a lot of the normal human signals you get. I think the most difficult thing about the whole pandemic of it all was, honestly, everyone wearing masks on set."
Henry is notorious for starting each day of filming with a hello and a handshake for each crew member, going out of his way to ask everyone how their day is going. "It's just respect and good manners," Cavill recently explained to The Hollywood Reporter, so with that in mind, it's clear why he found this experience so "taxing".
"I'm not saying 'unbearable'," he continues, "but you start to feel the effect, for sure, especially on a tough shoot."
In a strange turn of events, these restrictions on human interaction came around the same time that Geralt finally starts to open up within the story. And Henry himself was instrumental in making this happen.
"On season two, I wanted to bring as much of 'Book' Geralt into the show that Lauren's vision and that the plot would allow. That's a tricky thing to do, because the plot, as Lauren has said, is very centered around bringing women into the centre of The Witcher."
"You can't give Geralt more, as far as the storyline goes," Cavill adds. "But I just wanted him to be represented properly, rather than be a kind of grumpy-snowman-in-Shrek type of character. So I campaigned for him to be a bit more verbose, and to have more to say." Key to this was the paternal relationship that Geralt forms with Ciri.
It would have been easy to pit them against each other, like a surly teenager with her impatient father. "Instead," says Henry, "I wanted it to be, yes, a teenage girl who's gone through something traumatic, but Geralt's not biting every time Ciri has a moment where she's upset or she's lashing out. Instead, he's actually trying to get information, and he's understanding. He's being an intelligent man, which is what he is."
After reading through the scripts, Cavill also pushed for a similar thing with Vesemir, his former mentor – "less in the way of conflict, and more in the way of a bond between the two". But that bond might not be entirely what you'd expect.
"People like to say it's paternal – a sort of father/son type thing. And to a degree, it is. Personally, I just wanted to make it a bond which was both fraternal and paternal. Because as much as Vesemir raised and trained Geralt, Geralt is now his own man, and they are now both Witchers doing their own thing. It's just… Vesemir is the most senior Witcher."
This "gentleness", this "kindness" that Henry speaks of here comes into play later on as well during one particularly painful scene halfway through season two.
Despite coming across as a lone (white) wolf, Geralt actually cares deeply for those closest to him, and perhaps none are more important than Roach, his faithful steed. If you're unfamiliar with the source material, it might come as a shock to learn that [SPOILER WARNING] Geralt's horse dies in season two after a monster slashes his stomach.
"It seemed like a bit of negligence on Geralt's part," Henry jokes. But this carelessness also created a new opportunity for Cavill to include something from the books that the show neglected to cover.
"Due to the nature of the plot and the vision, there's a lovely bit missed out from Blood of Elves, where we see Geralt have this experience with Death as he's at the top of Sodden Hill. There's a monolith there with all the names of the majors who have died protecting the North."
"Geralt's still weak from his ghoul bite," Henry explains. "He climbs all the way up this hill, and we eventually find that he passes out. But we think he's having this experience with Death where Death is talking about a crossing over in this lovely sort of poetic piece. I think it's something like 'Across the meadow and through the mist'."
"I thought it was such a shame that we missed that beat in the story," continues Henry. "It's such an informative beat, as to Geralt's personality." So instead, Cavill quoted those same lines to help Roach on his journey to the other side – to "not be afraid of She Who Is Waiting For You".
As a longtime fan of the books, Henry "really wanted to bring some of [Andrzej] Sapkowski's poetic nature of Geralt into it". And the horse who played Roach was clearly feeling the moment too, so much so that even Cavill was touched by his performance on set.
"It was heart-wrenching, but not intentionally. It's not like the horse thought, 'I’m going to act the hell out of this'. It's because he was lying down. And because horses are so heavy, his breathing just sounded like death rattles – the last breaths. It was really quite a powerful moment for all of us there."
It's safe to say then that the horse actor nailed it — "He knocked it out of the park, that horse" — but so does Cavill in this tender scene which will surely be remembered as a standout moment for Witcher fans everywhere, including Henry himself.
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