There has been a lot of discussion around The Witcher Season 4, which will see Liam Hemsworth take over the role of Geralt of Rivia from fan-favorite Henry Cavill. But in all that chatter (most of which, let’s face facts, has not been pretty), few fans have paused to fairly ask the why of the replacement. No, not the why of Henry Cavill’s exit, but the why of his place being taken over by Maze Runner star Hemsworth.
But for those curious, series creator Lauren Schmidt Hissrich was only happy to explain.
Hissrich recently sat down with IGN (and Hemsworth himself) to chat about the transitional season, and at one point in the discussion, divulged the thinking behind Hemsworth being brought on board, as casting which happened before the public was even aware of Cavill’s exit.
“When we were looking at who potentially could fill the shoes of Geralt,” said Hissrich, “There is a physicality that has to be present… You need someone who you can imagine can excel at these action scenes, who has such a physical presence that they could be both intimidating in the story, but also, Geralt has a huge emotional side as well… What I really loved about Liam’s work that I had seen is that he was able to organically blend those two things.”
Hissrich goes on to say that Hemsworth “didn’t have physical scenes and then emotional scenes. He was able to really carry this specific, I guess I call it soul.”
(We’ll won’t quibble about whether Witchers are supposed to show soul, as they are trained to be almost Vulcan-like in hiding emotion. But just know if we did quibble, it would be here.)
“He has a soul that he brings into the role,” concludes Hissrich, “To have that present even through action scenes when he’s fighting monsters, and it’s the same thing that’s present when he’s having conversations with Ciri or with Yennefer, that was a really special thing that we were able to capture. And when I had watched some of his work, specifically going back to Hunger Games, that’s something that I felt from him.”
The Witcher season 4 debuts October 30 on Netflix.
