The Witcher Season 4 Addresses Henry Cavill’s Recasting Controversy

The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich has discussed how season 4 addresses Henry Cavill’s recasting. Cavill played the lead role of Geralt of Rivia in the hit Netflix fantasy series before his controversial departure following the end of The Witcher season 3, with Liam Hemsworth replacing him.

The show has come under fire for its casting change and the divisive nature surrounding Cavill’s departure, with many viewing the Superman actor as the perfect casting choice for the role. The Witcher season 4 dropped on Netflix on October 30, with many fans expecting it to take the show in a fresh direction.

In an interview with TV LineHissrich discussed how the show has addressed the casting change in-universe. She said that the tales of Geralt are merely stories passed among the generations, and the perspective of those stories changes depending on who tells them.

The season’s opening scene sees a young girl called Nimue arguing with an older storyteller that he has been telling the tale of Geralt wrong, and that the true story lies in a different book, hinting at how POV plays a big role within The Witcher‘s universe. Check out her comments below:

“We wanted to play with the idea, which is a huge theme in ‘The Witcher,’ of how stories change depending on who is telling them. So obviously that opening sequence is played and there’s a device, and you sense that, oh, maybe everything that we’ve seen over the last three seasons has been through someone’s POV. Maybe that’s not actually how it happened. We constantly love to be playing with the idea of ​​narrative with our audience.”

“We wanted to not dance around the fact that this is a new human being. Yes, there’s still the yellow eyes and the silver wig, but at the same time, it’s played by Liam now. For us, it was about revisiting these really important moments in Geralt’s life, now seeing them embraced by a new human. Moving on, it’s our hope that what you really start to see in Episode 1 is Geralt, not the actor that plays Geralt. That was Liam’s commitment to the role, and it worked out beautifully. He really sunk into the character, so then we didn’t feel the need to continue to address it.”

Hissrich’s comments show the interesting way the series addressed its new lead actor. It would have been tempting to simply ignore the casting change, as the character is still the same. However, the decision to explain this, in a sense, in the series is actually a very clever plot device.

The Witcher also spawned a prequel miniseriesThe Witcher: Blood Originwhich was released on December 25, 2022.

It also poses the idea that anyone could be the character, because it’s impossible to know the true Geralt if all anyone knows of him is the stories that are told. This is an intriguing plot device that opens up so many possibilities that it feels a shame that The Witcher season 5 is set to be the final chapter.

The idea that Geralt’s stories can vary depending on who’s telling them is a fascinating concept, and it does a good job of explaining why Geralt now looks different. This is similar to the James Bond theory that his name is simply a code for Agent 007, allowing the franchise to change the actor playing Bond whenever needed.

Whether the show will seek to expand on this idea in the future is unclear, but the fact that The Witcher has not chosen to shy away from its controversial casting change is a bold move. But it could wind up making the show’s final two seasons as memorable as its first three seasons, and maybe even help to ease the loss of Cavill.