Henry Cavill weighs in on Geralt vs Superman and his ‘love affair’ with PH fans

It’s easy to see why Henry Cavill captures the mystique and majesty of the two iconic characters—Geralt of Rivia (“The Witcher”) and Superman (“Justice League”)—that have helped turn him into one of Hollywood’s hottest stars.

To be honest, I didn’t expect to get starstruck when I met the 38-year-old, 6’1” tall actor for a one-on-one interview during his trip to Manila two years ago to promote the pilot season of Netflix’s immensely popular fantasy series.

After all, it’s hard not to gawk at the actor’s towering and scorching presence—in fact, even the security guards stationed outside the interview room at Conrad Manila couldn’t resist gushing over Henry’s physical pluperfection.

But it didn’t take long for me to realize there was more to him than meets the eye … something else that made Henry’s charm even more potent and powerful—his kindness. Imagine how pleasantly shocked I was when, on the drive back to the Inquirer newsroom, I got a text from his team relaying a message from Henry, thanking me for the “nice” interview!

It’s this larger-than-life quality that lends itself well to the characters he portrays. It makes you believe that someone as potentially deadly as a monster-slaying witcher or a Justice League leader could use his power for the greater good.

In another unique scenario, we crossed paths with Henry again sometime last July or August when he chose to speak to us about the hugely anticipated Season 2 of “The Witcher” on the phone—and the experience was just as memorable.

Focus on characters

The sophomore season of “The Witcher,” which launches on Netflix this Friday, follows the aftermath of the bloody Battle of Sodden, when Geralt (Henry) finally meets Princess Cirilla of Cintra (Freya Allan) and takes her under his wing. As she continues to train with a coven of Witchers and begins to take control of her emerging powers, she also wishes to be the next Witcher!

But under Geralt’s almost impenetrable armor of calm and solemn sobriety is a heart “grieving” for a loved one he thought he had lost forever: sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra).

“In Season 2, there will not be the same kind of playing around with the timelines that we had in the first season, so the story is a bit more linear,” said Henry when asked about what awaits the show’s fans in the brand-new season. “This way, viewers can focus more on plot and character development.”

You can take Henry’s word for it. I’ve seen six of the eight episodes so far, and we’re happy to note that characters are more fun and expressive—with clarificatory scenes that allow more breathing room for character development that doesn’t just involve Geralt, Ciri or Yennefer.

Unique worldview

After having lived under a witcher’s skin for two seasons, we asked Henry how much of himself do we see in the character. “When you’re tasked to breathe life into extraordinary characters from a fantasy novel or from any book in general, we always project a little bit of ourself into them, find a semblance of familiarity, and let that work in our favor,” he mused. “So, to a certain degree, yeah, there’s always going to be a lot of me in the characters I play.

“But Geralt does have that unique worldview, which I find quite refreshing. Unfortunately, he always ends up in tricky situations because of that. Thankfully, I don’t quite have that experience (laughs).”

Our Q&A with Henry:

Your fans went crazy when you visited the Philippines in 2019. But your wild but heartwarming moment with your Filipino followers should have been an indication of how successful the show would become, because “The Witcher” is now one of Netflix’s most prized franchises. You patiently signed autographs and had pictures taken with fans—for hours! What do you remember about that trip?

These trips can sometimes be such a whirlwind thing—it’s one of those situations where you’re in a country for just a couple of nights, you wish you could spend more time with the people, but then you have to move on to the next city.

However, the extraordinary response we got when we went to that shopping mall to meet the fans was fantastic! You know, you finish a project feeling quite exhausted and then you see the amazing support of people who are very positive and excited to see you—and it really does lift you up!

So, a huge thank you to the people in Manila, who welcomed me and [series showrunner] Lauren Schmidt Hissrich in such a wonderful way.

Andrzej Sapkowski, the Polish author who wrote a series of six novels and 15 short stories about the world of witchers, has been quoted making a flattering statement about you. He likens your portrayal of Geralt to that of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in “Lord of the Rings.” What’s your takeaway from portraying for creating this particular character?

I haven’t heard that before. That’s an enormous compliment from him. I would absolutely love to work even harder and try to be as close to his vision of Geralt as possible. It’s an extraordinary character that he created for the book and that is definitely a step in the right direction for me. I really do wish to give it more justice going forward.

I read that filming for Season 2 became a series of stops and starts because of the pandemic. How has this affected the show? And how long did it take you to shoot the whole thing?

We finished filming back in March. With the various lockdowns we’ve had, it took us over a year to shoot, rather than the planned five to six months of production. COVID slowed us down. But the important thing was, we did everything we could and tried to make the shoot fun every day, especially when there were COVID spikes after Christmas.

Definitely, there were difficulties, but we made it through. And we just feel very, very lucky to be working when a lot of people couldn’t. I choose to always look at the positive because of how difficult things can get sometimes. At that point, I just felt very fortunate to be working.

The story of “The Witcher” first came out 35 years ago, and it now has a cult following around the world. What is it about its world that strongly resonates with its fans?

I think its followers find the storytelling and the characters in it fascinating because they aren’t straightforward good or bad guys. They live in a realm where everything or everyone navigates in shades of gray.

In the way they’ve been written, there are no bad guys—just real people who are heroes of their own worlds. They’re not evil. The characters move across an empire with a different lifestyle.

No matter how you read the book, you’ll find things that [the writer] likes about in the characters that you hate, and things to hate about in the characters you love. And so, there’s always something there. These extraordinary characters move about in extraordinary ways, where no one’s right nor wrong.

You notice the nuances of it all that resonate with the things that are happening in the real world, but it’s done in such a wonderfully gentle way … These characters going through situations that we enjoy following.

You have a lot of followers as Geralt and Clark Kent. But how you managed to make Superman’s character your own is a feat in itself because Christopher Reeve was a hard act to follow. But in a battle between magic versus might, who do you think would win if Geralt and Clark were to face off?

First of all, if Superman were to really fight Geralt, unfortunately, there’s just no way Geralt would win. As a warrior, Geralt is brilliant and fight-savvy, but he won’t be able to do anything if Superman really wants to take him out!

But the reality of it is, I don’t think Superman will ever pick a fight with Geralt. But let’s suspend reality and say that they would actually fight. I honestly think that if there’s one thing that would make Superman lose a fight, it’s his hesitation to do any harm to the other person.

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