Trivia / The Witcher (2019)

• Actor-Inspired Element: Steve Wall, who played Boholt, felt that the East London inspired accent for the Reavers in the video game didn't really fit with the setting. So he based his character's accent off the series' Slovakian fight choreographer, Vladimír Furdík.
• Approval of God:
  • Andrzej Sapkowski, who famously criticized the Polish film and TV adaptations, was favorable towards the Netflix series and called Henry Cavill a "real professional". Past Season 2 though, he's shown some indifference and said "I've seen better. I've seen worse."
  • Doug Cockle, the voice of Geralt in the video game series, tweeted that he loved the Netflix series and praised its cast.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Henry Cavill is a passionate fan of the franchise (games and books), so he lobbied hard for the chance to play Geralt of Rivia. In interviews, Cavill admitted to "badgering" his agents for a chance to meet the script writer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich long before the script was even written. Both Cavill and Schmidt Hissrich said he was really "annoying", but Cavill would not let the chance to play Geralt pass him by if he could help it. Hence him stepping away from the role after Season 3 came off as a shock to many. He hasn't said much about the reasons that had him quit, but many clues point towards Creative Differences.
• The Cast Show Off: Joey Batey (who plays Jaskier) does his own singing. He also already plays the lute, having learned how when he was playing Mark Smeaton in the theatrical rendition of Wolf Hall. For the second season he co-wrote Jaskier's new songs.
• Creator Backlash: Some of the actors have been open with their own criticisms and regrets after production.
  • Joey Batey has admitted he's grown sick of "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher", as it's very much not his kind of song but he's been repeatedly hounded by it since. He has said though that Jaskier's music in the second season is much more his taste.
  • Freya Allan has admitted that the Dawson Casting left her with some insecurities about her appearance, as she was a 17-year-old playing a little girl; being told she looked like a young child as she was literally turning into an adult (and was legally an adult in the UK) had left her with a bit of a complex, apparently. Ciri's growth in the second season as she's now a teenager at least allowed her to be dressed more maturely, so she felt more comfortable with it.
• Darkhorse Casting: Outside of Henry Cavill, Jodhi May and Lars Mikkelsen, the cast is made of little known names, especially for some sizeable roles such as Freya Allan as Ciri, Joey Batey as Jaskier, and Anya Chalotra as Yennefer.
• Dawson Casting: The show's official timeline allows the audience to know the age of several of the characters, showing several instances of this trope:
  • Ciri is between 12 and 13 years old around the time of the fall of Cintra. Freya Allan, who plays her, was 17 during the filming of the first season, though being rather short (5'3") and petite, along with costuming and makeup, helped her look considerably younger. In season 2, less effort is made to make her look too much younger as Ciri has grown to about 14-15, which is when girls usually experience puberty, at least.
  • Renfri is 18 years old when she met Geralt. Emma Appleton was 27 during the filming of the first season.
  • Jaskier is 18 years old when he meets Geralt. Joey Batey was 29 during the filming of the first season.
• Dueling Works:
  • The first season came out one month after Disney+'s The Mandalorian. Both are high profile streaming fantasy shows centered around a lone drifting Bounty Hunter protagonist who becomes the protector/surrogate father of a child with special powers.
  • It also came out the same year as the Grand Finale season of another gritty high profile fantasy show, Game of Thrones.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Henry Cavill, having already bulked up for Superman, did even more for this role. He went even further for the iconic bathtub scene, dehydrating himself for three days to thin out his skin and make his muscles pop.
  • During the first season Freya Allen's eyebrows were bleached to match Ciri's blonde hair. The process was so damaging that for the second season she refused to do it anymore in case it permanently ruined her eyebrows.
• Fandom Nod: In "Redanian Intelligence" a bit character comments on a song Jaskier wrote, apparently covering the events of the first season. He says the multiple timelines were hard to follow and that Borch Three Jackdaws being a dragon was a Captain Obvious Revealinvoked, mirroring critical reactions to the first season.
• Follow the Leader: While the ultimate product is still its own, there's no denying that Game of Thrones's runaway success is largely responsible for Netflix greenlighting a medieval-ish Dark Fantasy series based off a series of novels and filled with violence, nudity and even a dash of geopolitics.
• Friendship on the Set: Anya Chalotra (Yennefer) and Joey Batey (Jaskier) describe themselves as best friends both on and off the set, having grown very close during filming. They frequently give interviews together and have a lot of fun.
• Meme Acknowledgement: The infamous Geralt-in-a-bathtub scene from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is reenacted in one of the episodes. Unlike in the game, the scene is actually written with a particular context in the books.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Marcin Czarnik (Ronin Mage) and Maciej Musiał (Sir Lazlo) played their on-camera roles in English and dubbed their lines for the Polish version.
• Newbie Boom: The series has caused a significant increase in sales of both the books and the games (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt especially). Steam recorded more players playing the third game in the weeks after the show's release than in the weeks after the game's release.
• On-Set Injury: Henry Cavill tore his hamstring while filming Season 2. He admits that an injury like this could have ended his acting career.
• The Other Darrin:
  • None of the Polish or English voice actors from the video game trilogy reprised their roles.
  • In the Japanese dub, almost no one from the dub cast from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the only game of the game trilogy dubbed to Japanese, reprise their roles here, including Geralt, who was switched from Kazuhiro Yamaji to Hiroki Tochi instead.
  • In October 2022 it was shockingly announced that Henry Cavill would be leaving the show after the third season and that Liam Hemsworth would be taking over the role of Geralt starting with the fourth season.
• The Other Marty: Thue Ersted Rasmussen was originally cast as Eskel for Season 2, but scheduling issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to drop out in favor of Basil Eidenbenz.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Henry Cavill is a big fan of both the games and the books. You can see him here briefly fanboying over them and saying he would love to play Geralt in the show. This was one month before it was announced he was playing the role. Also, one promotional video has him reading passages from the books.
  • Liam Hemsworth has also mentioned being a fan and being excited to play Geralt after Cavill's departure.
• Renewed Before Premiere: Season 2 was announced one month ahead of Season 1's premiere. Season 3 was announced a whole four months before Season 2 premiered.
• Role Reprise: In the Polish dub, Michał Żebrowski reprised his roles as Geralt from the 2001 film as well as the subsequent TV series, and is the only surviving original cast member to make a return.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Gaia Mondadori and Freya Allan bear a striking resemblance to each other◊; it's only fitting, they play mother and daughter on the series.
• Star-Making Role: For Joey Batey (Jaskier), Freya Allan (Ciri), and Anya Chalotra (Yennefer).
• Throw It In!: Henry Cavill started out using his normal speaking voice, as the crew had specifically instructed as Doug Cockle's raspy voice in the video games was so popular and they wanted to avoid comparisons as much as possible. Then after coming back from a Christmas break, Cavill accidentally started using a similar raspy voice, which worked so well they decided to keep it in.
• Troubled Production: The production of Season 2 was shut down due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Kristofer Hivju tested positive for the virus. In late June the producers announced that filming would resume in mid-August. Thue Ersted Rasmussen, who was slated to play Geralt's fellow Witcher Eskel, could not attend the rescheduled filming despite having already filmed some of his own scenes before the pandemic, resulting in his character being recast. Production had to pause again in November after four members of the crew tested positive for the virus and resumed after a two week quarantine. And unrelated to the pandemic, Henry Cavill injured his leg which forced the production to focus on scenes not involving Geralt until he recovered.
• Wag the Director: Roach's death scene was originally meant to be Played for Laughs as a nod to how all of Geralt's horses are named Roach. However, Henry Cavill protested against this and submitted the next day his own draft of how the scene should play out in which the scene was more sombre. This draft impressed the showrunners so much that it was included into the final script.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Cavill wanted Geralt's bathtub scene to contain a more explicit reference to the games by doing the exact pose, but the tub wasn't shaped the right way to let him do it.
  • The initial plan was to have Ciri as the primary viewpoint character and narrator, even beginning with events from toward the end of the book series where she takes center stage. The showrunners decided against it as Geralt would end up such a minor character that it wouldn’t make any sense to name the show after him.
  • The concept art for the series shows a radically different look for the Dryads than what ended up in the finished product, showing what looks like green plant matter growing on or under their skin, getting increasingly prominent as they age, as well as branch-like growths in their hair. The Caucasian elves were also portrayed as being deathly pale and extremely skinny.
  • The show was initially conceived as a movie. But Kelly Luegenbiehl, Vice President of International Originals at Netflix, convinced the producers to change it to a series since she felt that there was too much material to adapt for a 2-hour film.
  • Millie Brady was originally cast as Princess Renfri, but she was later replaced by Emma Appleton.
  • For Season 2, the showrunners intended for Ciri's interactions with Triss to have a "school girl crush" undertones with the young tween Ciri developing an immediate crush on the older woman, but due to the delay in-between seasons, Freya Allen ended up being just too mature looking for it to come off as such (she "wasn't a school girl anymore", as they put it). As they weren't confident on how to portray a one-sided queer crush with sensitivity, they opted to wait for a better point in the story to establish Ciri's bisexuality.
• Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: Anya Chalotra faced so much racist backlash about her character's Race Lift that she deleted her Twitter account. Triss' actress, Anna Shaffer, and several other Race Lifted characters faced similar abuse; prior to her casting, a rumoured casting breakdown lead people to believe Ciri would similarly receive a Race Lift, which lead to extensive backlash towards the showrunner, forcing her to inform people the casting breakdown was fake.
• Word of Gay: Showrunners have confirmed that Ciri is bisexual (as she was the novels and games) and that future seasons will explore this aspect of her character.
• You Sound Familiar: In the Japanese dub, Miyuki Sawashiro, who voiced Ciri in Wild Hunt, voices Renfri in the TV series.

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