By Season 3 will be Henry Cavill‘s final season as the titular witcher, and he will be passing the torch to Liam Hemsworth starting with Season 4. In many shows, a recast like this would be handled by simply moving forward without addressing the main character’s new face, and perhaps in The Witcher too that would be the best course of action, but the creative team behind the show seems to be intent on giving an in-universe explanation for the recast.
Here we’ll look on a couple of quotes from executive producer Tomek Baginski, who has teased what are they doing with the explanation in Season 4.
The unreliable narrator: “Every story can be told from many POVs”
Perhaps Season 4 could open with a flash-forward to a century after the events of the saga, to young Nimue verch Wledyr ap Gwyn hearing the story of Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri told by her father Stribog, or adult Nimue and Condwiramurs Tilly trying to piece together the details of that story and not being certain how Geralt really looked (but being certain how others looked, somehow).
Maybe Nimue’s father’s version of the story had Geralt looking like Henry Cavill, while her own investigation led her to believe he looked like Liam Hemsworth.
Baginski told The Express: “We probably don’t have time to go into philosophically the core ideas behind behind the saga and define the Witcher world, but one of the like big topics in The Witcher world is that every story can be told from many, many POVs – and sometimes those POVs and those versions of the stories are very, very different from what we thought was truth.”
That being said, it’s possible that Condwiramurs will be replaced by the shape-shifting storytelling entity of Seanchai played by Minnie Driver in The Witcher: Blood Origin and she would tell Nimue how Geralt really looked.
Baginski’s previous quotes on the matter were taken in an interview with Yahoo. “We have a very, very good plan to introduce our new Geralt and our new vision for Geralt with Liam. Not going deeply into those ideas because this will be a huge spoiler, [but] it’s also very, very close to the meta ideas which are deeply embedded in the books, especially in book five.
It’s very lore accurate. It’s very close to what was set out in the books and I think this change will be quite flawless. But at the same time, it will be a new Geralt, it will be a new face for this character and I think it will also be very, very exciting to see.“
In any case, it’s a bold strategy. Let’s see how it works out.
The different worlds: “It’s not just one world”
In the novels, multiple universes only come into play late in the story, when Ciri discovers her ability to travel through space and time. It is not the same kind multiverse that got popular recently with Marvel and DC, it is just different planes and worlds, different spheres that clashed into each other during the Conjunction once upon a time.
In the show, we already saw some hints towards this in the prequel Blood Origin, and it looks like Season 4 of the main series might be using the multiverse as a lore-friendly explanation for the show’s biggest controversy: the recasting of Geralt of Rivia.
Witcher producer Tomek Baginski has already been quoted on this matter in the past, where he described this transition from Henry Cavill to Liam Hemsworth as “lore-accurate” and specifically pointed to book five of the Saga where Ciri explores the different worlds as a source of inspiration. Now Baginski gave more hints in a new interview with Radio Times.
Radio Times asked the Witcher producer whether Geralt’s new appearance will be addressed in Season 4, or if the story will attempt to move seamlessly past the new Geralt. This was his reply.
“Lauren [Schmidt Hissrich, showrunner] and her team – and there are a few really good writers returning to the writers’ room for season 4 – I think they cobbled together a really nice opening which is really true to the books.
This is a very little thing that I will tease – people who know the books really deeply also know that this is not a typical fantasy book. It’s not just one world. It’s not just one story happening in those books, in those stories. It’s a huge, huge world which is very, very complex… I will stop here!”
Again, the books never refer to any different universes with a different Geralt in each, this isn’t the comic book definition of a “multiverse”. Each sphere in The Witcher universe is vastly different from one another and only one has a Geralt of Rivia. Nevertheless, it’s curious what the team behind the show has in mind.
Producers on people boycotting The Witcher because of the recast
In a new interview with Metro, Baginski also addressed how the team behind The Witcher feels about some portion of the audience boycotting the series because of the recast: “I think wait and see. It’s the only strategy I can take at the moment because we don’t know what will happen in the future. We don’t know how it will work.“
He continued by recalling how there were some concerns about Henry Cavill as well back in 2018: “I also remember what were the first reactions for Henry years ago in 2018. At that time, a lot of people couldn’t imagine this character being played by Henry Cavill, because, “Oh he’s too muscular.” There was a ton of different opinions all over the internet.
And then we released first materials and then we released first trailers and finally [it] was like, “Oh, that’s interesting. That actually is working, that’s actually going quite well.”’
Baginski also brought up that during filming of the first season, it took some time for Henry Cavill to get into the role completely: “Even Henry I think it took, [.. ] we started in the fall, and we had this hiatus when we were shooting season one during Christmas.
During this hiatus both the director and Henry had the chance to watch some of the materials from what was shot before, and when Henry returned after this hiatus, he returned with Geralt’s voice. But before that, it was not like that. It was still a discovery. It was still like, “Okay, should we test this or test this?”, and looking for the proper voice and proper character and who this character is. And then suddenly, Henry comes back in January and he is Geralt and it was like that.“
This isn’t new info, however. Both Baginski and Lauren Hissrich mentioned this exact fact during the press interviews before the release of the first season back in 2019.
Hissrich added at the time: “Henry himself says that he needed to find the perfect voice for Geralt. You can hear that, that he changes the tone, there’s weariness in it. But the evolving didn’t apply only to Henry’s acting, but also to the armor, the wig, the contact lenses. Oh yes, we changed the wigs many, many times!“
Volume 2 of The Witcher Season 3, Henry Cavill’s last outing as Geralt of Rivia, is slated for release on July 27. Liam Hemsworth will climb into Cavill’s shoes, and wig, later this year when Netflix begins filming Season 4. Read the latest Season 4 scheduling updates in the article linked below.
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Characters in movies and tv shows change ALL THE TIME.
How many “James Bonds” have we seen? When Dick Sargent replaced Dick York in “Bewitched”, did the audience riot? Actors come and go. Granted, some are better than others.
If Hemsworth can’t pass muster (or “cut the mustard” –choose whichever metaphor you like), viewers will quit the show and it gets cancelled. I enjoyed Henry Cavil’s work, but I’m willing to give Liam Hemsworth a chance at the character.