WITCHERS & MONSTERS

THE WITCHER’S SHOWRUNNER TALKS ABOUT THE SHOW, ESPECIALLY CASTING HENRY CAVILL

The Witcher, which was released last week on Netflix, follows Geralt of Rivia, played by the ridiculously good-looking Henry Cavill, a mutated monster-hunter who prefers keeping to himself though destiny has other plans. We attended the show’s fan event in Manila, the Philippines, where we sat down with the show’s showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, who has also worked on

The Umbrella Academy and Daredevil, to talk about The Witcher.

How fast do you want viewers to fully understand The Continent and the world of The Witcher?

In terms of rolling out a story — I do think audiences are smart — I want to drop the audience in and they can sort of see how brutal and big the world is. I don’t think that it helps to slow it down unnaturally. However, it’s not important in the first episode to know the names of every city or to understand how everyone is related to each other. Those are things that as you watch the episode and hopefully as you watch future seasons, you’ll be able to start putting that puzzle together. I hope that audiences feel that they’re not just being told a story but they’re on a journey with us.

How do you ensure that the nude scenes are necessary?

Audiences are really savvy now. The interesting thing about television, especially streaming platforms, is that you can do anything and say anything, but just because we have that right doesn’t mean we have to do it all the time. When choosing to portray things for mature audiences, which also includes blood and gore, I make sure that they’re there to drive the story forward. The reason I bring up smart audiences is because audiences don’t need to be shocked. Hopefully, our storytelling is good enough so that we don’t need something crazy going on in the background for audiences to be shocked. I want them to pay attention to our story so when we do have gratuitous or violent scenes, it’s all about pushing the story forward and making sure that we understand what the character is going through at that moment and how it changes them.

The show is graphic but it also had me laughing. How important was it to incorporate humour in the show?

It was incredibly important to us. First of all, the sense of humour comes straight from the books and that was an important thing for us to carry over. Fantasy genre is not typically seen as humorous because it has to do with so many big themes. You’re talking about wars and battles and lots of people die. But the truth is, when I spoke to the author about the humour in the books, we talked about how real humans deal with tragedy and a lot of people deal with tragedy with humour.

Was it important to interpret the monsters in a traditional way or did you take liberties putting your own unique spin on it?

Yes and no. The monsters that we’re taking from the books, we tried to represent as closely as we can from the books. What I think is fun is that we do take a lot of monsters from the books but then we also went into a lot of Slavic folklore and created monsters of our own. In fact, there are monsters that you see throughout the season that aren’t in the books at all that are just figments of our imagination.

This is your first time working with Henry Cavill. Why did you specifically choose him for Geralt since you mentioned that while writing the scripts, you constantly thought of him as the character?

Henry is a huge fan of The Witcher franchise — he’s spoken about this a lot — though he was introduced through it by the games. In fact, when we met, he knew there were books but didn’t know that the books inspired the games. He thought it was the reverse, so he knew a lot about Geralt. He probably knew more about Geralt than I did. He is really a scholar of the material. That being said, I don’t think being a fan doesn’t necessarily make him the best person to portray Geralt. To me, it’s about portraying the spirit of the character. And Henry was willing to audition for us and that’s something not a lot of actors of his calibre are willing to do. But he was so passionate about this role and being part of this show that we sat down together in New York and he actually read scenes. That’s when I first heard his Geralt voice that he had been working on. I began to realise just how much he was already starting to embody Geralt even as I had been writing.

Since he’s recognisable as Superman, was there any worry that people would be too distracted and want him to be wearing a cape along with the white hair and sword?

Not at all. It’s the beauty of hiring an actor and it’s the beauty of trusting that actor to embody whatever role they’re in. I was amazed that at the fan event last night, I watched Henry walk down the red carpet and sign every poster and thing that was out in front of him. He truly engages with fans and draws enthusiasm from them. Part of that is probably because he played Superman and because he had that experience with that beloved character. I knew that if he could bring that same passion and energy to this show then it’s a total win.

What are some of the different elements that you had working on something like

Daredevil and The Defenders compared to this? Did you bring any of them when working on The Witcher?

When I started working on The Witcher, I did have experience in adapting something that was already beloved by fans and had source material that was enormous. What I love doing in any adaptation is to make sure that I’m connecting with the material, see what I would want to see as an audience member. The good news is that I have a staff of writers that work with me and we sit in a room for 20 weeks and all we do is talk about stories and characters and use our imaginations. It’s the best job ever. We talk about how each of us relates to the material and we do so in different ways, so we try to take what everyone loves about it and put it all in and make sure it ends up being a cohesive drama. The thing

you have to deal with when doing an adaptation is knowing you can’t do it all. There’s so much in the books we had to leave behind just because of sheer need. We only have eight hours to tell these stories. The good news is we now have a season two already so we get to put the stuff we had to leave behind back in season two, which is really exciting.

Being part of the fantasy genre, comparisons with Game Of Thrones are inevitable. Are you trying to emulate what they did or do something completely different? Does it also signify a rise in the popularity of the fantasy genre?

Audiences are relating to fantasy in a way that couldn’t have happened without Game

Of Thrones. As a writer, I owe a debt of gratitude to them. I’m a huge fan, as well. They brought fantasy to the masses. Up until then, fantasy was seen as only for geeks and nerds.

Game Of Thrones said, ‘Wait, fantasy is just a reflection of our real world and the problems we go through as humans, and we can relate to that’. That’s how I think The Witcher approaches fantasy, as well. Do I think they’re similar? Not at all. I think any audience that sits down and watches our show will see that the way we tell stories, how we dig into characters, certainly the monsters and the magic and the reliance on those for storytelling, is very different. But I do think when people ask ‘Will your show be the next Game Of

Thrones?’, that’s flattering. What people are saying is ‘Can it be as successful and beloved?’ I hope so! J