5 things we want from Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher

Henry Cavill is out and Liam Hemsworth is in as Geralt of Rivia, the white-haired monster slayer on Netflix’s The Witcher. On the surface, making the transition from Cavill to Hemsworth should be fairly seamless. They’re both tall, broad, and burly. They’re both decorated action stars. Deep-fake images of Hemsworth’s face on Cavill’s body are already making us wonder if Hemsworth has actually been there the entire time…

But Geralt of Rivia is not just a tall, broad, and burly action star. He is, as Cavill stated in his farewell-to-Geralt Instagram post, a “fascinating and nuanced” character. While we don’t expect Hemsworth’s Geralt to be a carbon copy of Cavill’s, there are a few traits essential to the witcher’s character that we hope Hemsworth will work into his own portrayal of the White Wolf:

1. Brooding

For all his entanglement in geo-political conflicts across The Continent, Geralt mostly just wants to be left alone. The opening of season 3 is essentially a six-minute march featuring a cloaked Cavill doing one of two things: staring out across a barren landscape or glaring at Yennefer. That’s right, in the year 2023, in the midst of a platinum age of television, The Witcher dedicated six straight minutes to Henry Cavill’s brooding. And they might be the best six minutes of the episode.

For all The Witcher’s political intrigue, flashy duels, and epic magic, Cavill managed to make Geralt’s silent self-doubt and begrudging sighs the most compelling elements of the show. Maybe it’s because it’s just so, so easy to look at Henry Cavill’s face. If that’s the case, then Hemsworth should have no difficulty capturing the same sullen brood. But I think it’s more than that.

I think Cavill felt the inner strife that Geralt did, that he felt Geralt’s deep reluctance to play a prominent role in an increasingly high-stakes battle. Whether it’s through long hours practicing in front of a mirror or twilights spent alone on a distant hillside, I hope Hemsworth finds a way to portray Geralt’s struggle with his internal monsters as convincingly as he can the struggle against the outer ones.