Henry Cavill explains one-take “dance of death” from The Witcher

Ciri (Freya Allan), Geralt (Henry Cavill), and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) in The Witcher season 3.
Ciri (Freya Allan), Geralt (Henry Cavill), and Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) in The Witcher season 3.

The third season of The Witcher is out now on Netflix (well, the first five episodes are, anyway), and it may be the best season yet.

As always, one of the highlights is Henry Cavill’s performance as Geralt of Rivia, the monster-hunting witcher of the title. The premiere episode climaxes with a big skirmish as the Elven ruin of Shaerrawedd, where Geralt fights alongside Ciri (Freya Allan) to keep her safe from the growing number of people who want to kidnap or kill her for a variety of reasons.

It’s a pretty wicked fight scene, and Cavill is enthusiastic to talk about it alongside second unit director and stunt coordinator Wolfgang Stegemann in the video below:

Henry Cavill did The Witcher fight scene over 100 times before they got it right

Cavill is famously a big fan of The Witcher universe, be it the books by Andrzej Sapkowski or the video games by CD Projekt Red. He used that knowledge to, for example, conceive of ways to incorporate witcher signs into the fight, like the Heliotrop sign. “We designed it as more of an overall shield rather than just a forward shield…We also had Igni in here as well.”

The end goal was to make it look like Geralt was playing for keeps; Ciri’s life was on the line and he’s not messing around. “It’s all about maiming people or killing them.”

All in all, Geralt interacts with 12 people in the fight, 13 if you include the camera operator. Doing that right takes a lot of practice. The team did 90 takes in training, and 35 on the day. I’m exhausted just typing that. And there were no cuts. “This is truly a one-take fight,” Cavill said. “The beauty of a one-take is that it can allow the audience members to feel truly involved in the dance of death that is happening.”

The final three episodes of The Witcher season 3 come out on Netflix on July 27.

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