ExceptThe Witcheralso hasa lotof diverse monsters playing very pivotal roles in the story.
), theCiri casting controversy, comparisons toGame of Thrones, and some new hints about the secretive storyline.
Theres also fun in exploring what happens between the pages of the books.
Credit: Netflix
The books explore events over a long period of time but theres also story they skip through Yennefer.
for instance, some of the more defining moments of her life, we hear about them in flashback.
We got to explore them in real time.
Its exciting to take Andrzejs work and bring it to life.
How didThe Witcherfirst get on your radar?
I readThe Last Wishand really loved it.
But I never would have called myself a fantasy writer before this.
Ive done some comic book shows, Ive done a lot of drama.
So when I read the book I loved it but never thought I should adapt it personally.
These three characters Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri really rose to the surface.
And that was one of the most appealing things to me.
There are books, short stories, and videogames a lot of potential story material laying around.
Which is great as the videogames are also an adaptation of the books.
They went one direction, we actually get to go another.
Were kind of holding close to our chest what were doing in the first season.
Theres a lot of obviously epic excitement that starts in the saga of the books.
Is there an outright villain?
Or is that a secretive aspect?Its not a secretive aspect.
There isnt really a villain.
One of the things were enjoying exploring is all the shades of grey in the books.
The characters youre rooting for in the beginning may not be the characters youre rooting for in the end.
And characters you hate and seem absolutely evil are motivated by something thats really relatable and human and emotional.
I found writing it and then watching it afterward that your allegiance switches a lot.
I think youll end up having a lot of empathy for characters you didnt expect to.
Landing Henry Cavill coming offMission: Impossible Falloutand playing Superman was a huge score.
How did that go down?Henry is a huge fan of this property.
Hes read all of the books.
Hes played all the games.
I met him at the very beginning of the process.
He said, I would love to play this character.
I said, Henry, youre amazing, but we havent even started thinking about casting yet.
Then I met 207 other possible Geralts.
And I came back to Henry at the end.
The first time I met him I hadnt even started writing the scripts yet.
And once I started writing I couldnt get Henrys voice out of my head for the character.
Looking at the final product, its really exciting.
He embodies Geralt in a way that I dont think anybody else could.
He tends to take in whats around him and process that internally.
But you cant have [a lead character] process everything internally in a television show.
So in the first episode, I wrote Geralt with a lot of lines.
Henry shot them all, and in the edit we started pulling some of them out.
I noticed in the screen test clip put on Twitter that Geralt didnt have yellow eyes.
Is that added in post-production?
I think everybody will be impressed by how he looks.
This franchise has millions of fans.
We knew we werent going to make everyone happy.
As you know, per the controversy, we looked at everyone possible for this role.
And when we found Freya we made her an offer that day.
Shes young, yet has the soul and maturity of somebody much older.
She was able to bring a depth to this character.
When Freya is in a scene with Henry they really rival each other.
I take it you guys have more of a PG-13 vibe vs., say,Game of Thrones?
Or is that an inaccurate assumption?Thats a pretty inaccurate assumption!
Its a very adult show.
What doesWitcherbring thats unique to the fantasy space?The monster and horror aspect.
Its been done occasionally on fantasy shows but it takes a backseat to magic a lot of the time.
And Im sure fans are wondering when they can expect a trailer?I cannot say.
