‘It was demanding’: The Witcher director opens up about Henry Cavill

Marc Jobst, one of the directors of The Witcher, has opened up about Henry Cavill’s exit from the show.

Cavill starred as demon hunter Geralt of Rivia in the popular Netflix fantasy series, but announced last year that he was stepping down from the role.

The third season, released in two parts earlier this year, featured Cavill in the lead role for the final time. In the already comissioned fourth season, the role will instead be played by The Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth.

In an interview with Games Radar, Jobst, who directed multiple episodes of The Witcher, suggested that the “demanding” nature of filming the series may have had a hand in Cavill’s exit.

“Look, Henry has done three series, these are demanding shows to make, you know, they are huge,” he said, when asked about the Man of Steel actor’s departure. “Henry does every single beat of his stunts, he won’t even allow a hand, if you’re doing a close-up of a hand grabbing a sword, it has to be his hand.

“So, normally, what you do is you bring in a double, Henry will go off and shoot some other scene in which he’s in somewhere else, and you get somebody else into the hand, so that you don’t have to bother your number one. Henry won’t do that, and as a result of that, the results are extraordinary.”

He compared collaborating with Cavill to working with “an incredible athlete”, and cited the stunt work Cavill undertook when filming Geralt’s battle in the town of Blaviken back in season one.

“That’s draining on your number one, so after three series, I feel, ‘Okay, he’s brought the show into being, and if he feels like he’s done what he can, I trust him,’” Jobst continued. “That focus that he has, that desire to get it right, is a gift to work with because it elevates everybody to say, ‘Good enough isn’t good enough. It’s got to be fantastic.’”

While filming the second season of The Witcher, Cavill injured his leg on set. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about the incident, he later said: “It was a very, very bad [hamstring] tear, and I was very lucky that it wasn’t a complete detachment of the hamstring...

“The difficulty was working while I was injured. Because I wanted to do more for the production – I know how important it was for them to get stuff done. So it was having to find that balance between, ‘Yes, let’s push, push, push,’ and, ‘Whoa, hold on, if I tear this further, it’s the end of my action career.’ That was my worst moment of the past year — professionally.”

Jobst recently directed episodes of Netflix’s live-action anime adaptation One Piece, released on the streamer later this month.

Geralt is the second major role that Cavill has left in recent months, following the news that he was being replaced as Superman in the DC cinematic universe.

Cavill, who played the man of steel in films such as Batman v Superman and Justice League, will not be returning to the role for the forthcoming superhero thriller Superman: Legacy.

Instead, the part will be played by The Politician star David Corenswet.