Watch Vladimír Furdík (the Night King) choreograph the opening fight from The Witcher

Most of know Vladimír Furdík, if we recognize his name at all, as the actor who portrayed the silent-but-deadly Night King on Game of Thrones, his face buried under lots of icy blue-and-white prosthetics.

Credit: HBO

But although he made a fine implacable menace for Westeros, Furdík’s main gig is as a stunt performer and fight choreographer. He lent his skills to Game of Thrones, of course, and also to projects like Spartacus, Thor: The Dark World and Skyfall. He also worked on Netflix’s The Witcher, where he choreographed the memorable opening scene, where Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) fights and kills a frightful kikimora in a swamp.

That fight was exciting to watch, but the reality of how it was planned is a little less edge-of-your-seat. In the video below, Netflix walks us through how it was planned, and it’ll be impossible to look at the scene in the same way ever again:

Oh my god, there are a bunch of guys holding PVC pipes to simulate the kikimora’s spider-like legs! This is the kind of magic I demand from my movies.

Furdík actually only choreographed the fights for that first episode of The Witcher. The rest were done by Wolfgang Stegemann, and neither of them are returning for season 2 of the show, which is currently scheduled to debut sometime next year…assuming the coronavirus-mandated production halt doesn’t seriously derail things.

On the other hand, maybe that will give the team time to reconsider? Because everyone can use more of Furdík’s talents.

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