Henry Cavill crafted his own version of Geralt by digging deep into ‘The Witcher’ books and games

If you’re a fan of The Witcher – whether you grew up with Andrzej Sapkowski’s book series published in Poland in the ’90s, read the comic book adaptation, or devoured every last side quest in the games – Geralt of Rivia is a truly iconic character.

And if you have no idea who that is, pull up a pew.

For years, people have read their way with, or even spent hours playing as the witcher — a bounty-hunter with a penchant for defeating monsters, who often keeps the peace for humans who don’t exactly welcome him with open arms.

But Henry Cavill, who plays Geralt in Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher, has a strong handle on this rugged, misunderstood, powerful character, having read the original series of short stories and novels by Polish writer Sapkowski, and even battled a few monsters in the games.

“Geralt is in the tricky position of being someone who is by nature a white knight but by nurture the opposite,” Cavill told Mashable. “Everything he believes in still is all about doing the right thing and people being the best version of themselves and protecting the innocent. Everything he’s been told by father figures and by the world he lives in is about not doing that.”

For all his dealings with the undead, unwashed, unstoppable monsters that slither, crawl, and run cities around the series’ geographical setting of the Continent, Geralt is also an incredibly funny character — swearing, rolling his eyes, and offering up the perfect quips in between the petty squabbles of humans. It’s something Cavill sees as a means of survival for the witcher, and directly descendant from the novelist’s own words.

“[Geralt] has a very dry sense of humour, which is gallows humour as well. He’s seen a lot. He’s been to all kinds of places. And the way he survives is by having a dry outlook on the world and humour as part of what gives him his charm.”

“Geralt’s moral compass is always aimed in the direction of doing the right thing.”

The Witcher series speaks a lot to the idea of monsters, and how they’re created. But Geralt doesn’t seem to pick sides, he doesn’t believe in a “lesser” or “greater” evil. 

“Geralt’s moral compass is always aimed in the direction of doing the right thing. There are times where he is seemingly very cruel and harsh, but that’s only because both choices are not the right thing. And that’s the great thing about Sapkowski’s writing is that everyone is a hero of their own story,” explained Cavill, referring to two characters from the new series, Renfri and Stregobor.

“When you look at characters like Renfri, Stregobor, and then you throw Geralt between those two characters, Renfri is a hero of her story and Stregobor is a hero of his story, and Geralt sees them both as villains. But they both see Geralt as a villain. And it’s, that’s what’s so wonderful about this world there are no, there is no way of telling who’s a hero and who’s a villain. It’s all about perspective. And that’s what’s clever about Sapkowski’s writing.”

While the world-building and history of The Witcher comes from Sapkowski’s pages and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich’s adaptation, one of the most striking elements of the show comes direct from the game: Geralt’s voice. Cavill took cues from voiceover artist Doug Cockle, who brought the character to life in the games, but said he also wanted to find his own voice for Geralt.

“Absolutely, I took some inspiration from Doug Cockle’s work,” Cavill explained. “Doug Cockle did an incredible job. I didn’t want to make it the same as Doug’s. I wanted to make it slightly different. But what I found with Doug’s performance is that it lended a huge amount of gravitas to very few words spoken. In the books, he’s very verbose, and we have a full book worth of time to hear Geralt have conversations, and you see the nuance and complication coming through the character that way. 

“In the framework of our show, where Lauren’s brought her own vision and her own lens, it’s a different thing. There is less in the way of spoken word of Geralt and we don’t have the luxury of an inner monologue which we have in the books. So I wanted every single sentence, every single word he said to carry weight, and I found Doug managed to achieve that in the games. And so for me, I wanted to bring a piece of that as well and make it my own.”

But it’s not all talk, as The Witcher features one particular characteristic that made the games unputdownable: creative, elegant, brutal combat. Fans of the game might identify Geralt’s signature sword-fighting-meets-magic style in Cavill’s performance, but the star didn’t just play the games to learn how to fight as the witcher: he found inspiration in other fantasy fiction.

“As far as the fighting goes, for me, I just wanted to show a style which was flowing and yes, there are some similarities to the games, but I didn’t deliberately study the games,” he said. 

“I took it more from all of my fantasy readings, where you often hear about if anyone is in a training montage equivalent, they’re often being taught how to dance first before they’re given a sword. And for me, that’s what I wanted to show. 

“Geralt, if you took a sword out of his hand, he would be dancing.”

The Witcher lands on Netflix Dec. 20.