‘Henry was basically my second fight coordinator,’ The Witcher’s stunt expert said (Picture: Katalin Vermes/Netflix/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock)
The Witcher star Henry Cavill is said to have been so incredible at doing his own stunts that he’s basically ‘fully qualified’ to become a stuntman himself, and was effectively the ‘second fight coordinator’ on season 3.
Considering how accomplished he is in the Netflix TV series’ action sequences, we’re not even surprised to hear it.
The third season of the fantasy show, based on the novels which spawned a globally-popular video game franchise, marks Henry’s final outing as Geralt of Rivia before he’s replaced by Liam Hemsworth, with season 3 volume 1 dropping last week.
Prior to his exit, Metro.co.uk spoke to several members of the crew who worked on the production behind the scenes, including stunt coordinator Wolfgang Stegemann, who returned after a brief stint working on season one, and VFX supervisor Tim Crosbie.
Tim shared that working with Henry, 40, was a ‘dream’ and described him as ‘such a good guy’, while stressing how professional he was on set and just how brilliant he was at performing his own stunts.
‘He was always on time or early, hit his marks, knew his actions, knew his choreography. I remember chatting with Wolfgang, the stunt coordinator, saying if Henry wanted to be a stuntman he could be, because he’s fully qualified now basically,’ the visual effects supervisor said.
Fans are devastated to say goodbye to Henry as Geralt (Picture: Loredana Sangiuliano/SOPA Images/Shutterstock)
‘Says he’s one of the best in the business. I couldn’t hope to work with a better actor for doing what we do as well because he really knows his body so he knew where to put himself to interact with these monsters and things that didn’t exist yet, which is kind of cool.’
Wolfgang shared how ‘happy’ he was to return to The Witcher for season three, having also previously worked with Henry on the 2018 movie Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
‘We know exactly how we work together. We know exactly how we think and approach those excellent action scenes. Coming back on season three was amazing because we had already a rhythm and we knew how to approach [it],’ he continued.
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‘Having Henry massively involved in designing those fight scenes – he’s basically my second fight coordinator. He’s choreographing, shot designing and we find the right angles and then he’s creating this action scene and fight scene for himself to create as his own skin.’
Wolfgang stressed that despite the many action sequences with Henry and the other members of the cast, there was ‘no injuries’ and ‘everything was very well prepared’, adding that Henry ‘did like 200% of the stunts and fights by himself’, and didn’t have a stunt double.
The stunt expert emphasised how ‘golden’ it was to have an actor ‘who can do all the stunts by himself’ when directed action scenes.
The second part of The Witcher season three drops later this month (Picture: Netflix)
‘I have absolute freedom on how to stylise the fight or the action scene, combined with the particular camera technology and camera style. So I don’t need to hide anything,’ he said.
‘To have an actor like Henry, it’s just incredible. You can explore even different worlds of action because you can focus right on the character. It’s amazing.’
With Hunger Games star Liam set to take over from Henry from season four, The Witcher armourer Nick Jeffries said that there’s ‘work’ going on with the actor, but it’s ‘very early days’.
The Witcher season 3 volume 1 is available to stream on Netflix, with volume 2 due to drop on Thursday July 27.
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‘Henry was basically my second fight coordinator,’ The Witcher’s stunt expert said.
