The Witcher: Henry Cavill’s Voice for Geralt Came About on Accident

Henry Cavill’s voice for Geralt on The Witcher came about by accident. The fantasy-drama series premiered on Netflix in 2019 and is based on the popular book series by Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski and the three video games the books inspired. The eight-episode first season, adapted primarily from the author’s short story prequels The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny, was well-received by fans and critics and was renewed for a second season before the first even premiered.

The Witcher season 1 followed Henry Cavill’s monster slayer Geralt of Rivia, Princess Cirilla of Cintra (Freya Allan), and the powerful sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra) through different points of time as their destinies become entwined, eventually merging into a single timeline by the end of the season. Prior to being cast as the iconic monster hunter, Cavill himself was a huge fan of the The Witcher video games, which featured actor Doug Cockle as the voice of Geralt. Cavill has even has even said that he felt pressure playing Geralt, as he wanted to represent the character accurately. While the Netflix adaptation approached Sapkowski’s story a little differently, Cavill said that his voice for Geralt was accidentally inspired by Cockle’s voice.

During an interview at WitcherCon (per PC Gamer), Cavill revealed that the voice he uses for Geralt came about by accident. Cavill said that while he was auditioning for the role, The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told Cavill that he should use his own voice, rather than Geralt’s raspy voice from the video games. However, while filming a scene in the third episode, the “Gerald” voice accidentally came out. Cavill said:

I didn’t do that intentionally. That happened by accident. And then afterwards I was like, ‘Oh my god, I just played a whole scene in the wrong voice’.

He continued by saying that he eventually decided that delivering the lines in that voice actually worked better:

I know it’s very similar to Doug Cockle’s amazing work. That was definitely a concern. I don’t want to seem like I’m plagiarizing another professional’s extraordinary work. I had a look at it, had a listen to it, and I thought, actually they are different enough. It’s clearly inspired by—but I did my own thing, and then I spoke to Alec and I spoke to Lauren, and they both said, ‘It’s okay, actually, if you want to do that, we can go with that, and we’ll redo the rest.

Cavill also went on to say that Geralt’s raspy voice is not as difficult to do as it seems. “It sounds like it is, but it’s about just finding that—in season 1 I was still trying to find it, and you can definitely tell when I have,” he said. “But in season 2, it’s not difficult to do at all. It’s actually quite easy.” Filming on season 2 faced a few delays due to the coronavirus pandemic after first being shut down in March 2020. The recent WitcherCon released a new trailer for The Witcher season 2, as well as a release date of December 17 of this year. Images, official posters, and episode titles for season 2 (sans the finale) have also been revealed.

Cavill’s portrayal of Geralt has been applauded by fans and critics since The Witcher hit Netflix. What makes his performance special is that Cavill was already a fan of the video games, meaning that he was committed to the original source material. Most fans would likely agree that Cavill plays Geralt in a way that does not completely copy Cockle’s voice, while still drawing inspiration from it.

Source: PC Gamer

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Molly Feser
(293 Articles Published)

Molly is a movie/TV news writer for Screen Rant with a love for all things pop culture. She received her bachelor’s in Journalism from George Mason University and her master’s in Journalism & Public Affairs from American University. She’s written for a variety of online publications, including her online graduate publication The Wash, Her Campus and Arlington Magazine. She especially loves writing about movies, TV and musical theatre.

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