Debunking misinformation about Netflix's The Witcher (Part 7)
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"The writers were mad that Henry Cavill wouldn't do any shirtless scenes or sex scenes."
So. The origin of this is based off of an episode of the Deuxmoi podcast that alleges that Henry Cavill was ultimately fired for sexist behavior that caused production delays — which has obviously never been officially confirmed. However, just to entertain the idea for a second to debunk why exactly Henry Cavill not wanting to do any sex scenes and/or nudity might've been a problem as I've seen people bring this up against the show a lot…
Obviously actors shouldn't have to do any nudity or sex scenes if they don't want to.
She told us: ‘I had a body double for the sex scenes, and she was always there. Flora. But I didn’t, I only used her for the first sex scene because I realised very quickly in that first sex scene that actually, I didn’t feel comfortable anyone else portraying Yennefer, because it’s still acting isn’t it?’
And they don't have to. Anya herself, at least initially, used a body double for her first sex scene on the show.
"The first thing that happens is we sit with the actor, and we have a conversation [about the scene]. If the actor is not comfortable, that scene is rewritten. There is absolutely no way that we proceed forward unless everyone is comfortable. Of course, if at any time someone does feel uncomfortable, not even just the actors themselves, but anyone else on the set, we stop immediately and reassess."
That's Lauren's stance on the filming of nudity and sex scenes on the show.
Lastly, we have a rather curious addition to the crew. Lizzy Talbot has been tapped as the intimacy coordinator for the show. For those of you who don’t know, an intimacy coordinator is a rather recently invented position for film and TV and their duties involve ensuring the well-being and consent of actors performing in intimate scenes as well as making sure the intimate scenes are filmed according to a previously agreed choreography. What this informs us about the story is that yes, there will be intimate scenes in Season 2.
The show also hired an intimacy coordinator from season 2 onwards and they were also used for Blood Origin.
“Lizzy Talbot was our intimacy coordinator and she was just brilliant. She made it like a stunt, really,” O’Fuarain said of the intimate scenes.
So if this was a problem for production (which, again, we have no official confirmation of), it likely would've been because Henry Cavill was very controlling when it came to Geralt's physical depiction and didn't want to use any body doubles or stunt doubles and insisted that only he ever physically portray Geralt on screen:
"From the very beginning, he said he wanted to be involved in the actual stunts. He didn’t want to use movie magic or camera tricks to pretend it was him. Anytime Geralt is on the screen, even if it’s just his hand reaching for something or his hair flipping through the frame, it’s always him."
Which means that if he did shut down any nudity and sex scenes, he essentially would've been shutting down the idea of Geralt as a character (as opposed to Henry the actor) ever engaging in any of those scenes. (Which, if you know anything about the books, would've actually caused significant problems with the story later on.)
"The show made Henry Cavill go on a dehydration diet for shirtless scenes."
Henry Cavill talked about the dehydration diet on Graham Norton's show and at no point in time was there ever any indication of the role that production played in that decision. Now, is it likely production was involved in at least some way? Yeah, probably. But afaik there is still no indication either way of just how much it was their decision, his decision, both, or what.
However, I do have to note that given that Henry Cavill almost nearly blinded himself because he blew off the advice of his doctor who told him that he could not wear his Geralt contacts for an extended period of time without risking damage to his eyes:
"I was only allowed to keep them in for three hours at a time, well I supposed to only keep them in three hours at a time. […] My eye-technician was always pushing me to say like, “No, I don’t care. I don’t care what you need to shoot, take, take the bloody contacts out, because you will start to go blind after a while”. I was sure she was probably selling a slightly more dramatic version of the truth, because I do tend to be a bit stubborn like that. And I’ll say, no, it’s alright we can shoot couple more hours will be fine. And she said, we won’t be fine. You’ve got to take them out now. There’s lot of volcanic rock in the Canary Island, and when it picks up a lot and it’s all this stuff, which becomes very, very light and dusty. It got in behind the contacts, so my eyes ended up being scratched. I didn’t realise it was scratching so we went back to Budapest after our trip to Canary Islands. But it got to the point where I couldn’t really keep my eyes open, my eyes were watering, had to try and wash everything out. Very, very stingy, very painful, but I just thought it’s just because I’m tired and not getting much sleep and I just need to muscle through it. It got to the point where my technician found me hiding in the shadows of my eyes closed because it was was very bright. She said take them out. And I said, No, No, I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. Just give me some things to dab my eyes before a scene will be good. She put her foot down and said, “No, I’m stopping shooting until you take them out”."
And how he'd wear his armor practically 24/7 in order to break it in because he wanted it to look realistically worn down (and nevermind it's literally canon in the books that Geralt buys himself new clothes anyway 🙃):
"He wanted, for instance, for the armour to look like it had been worn for years and years. So he made breakfast in it and he would sleep in it. We were like ‘you don’t have to do that by the way’, but he’s that invested in embodying his character."
And how he insisted that only he ever physically portray Geralt on screen, including for things minute as closeups of his hand or shots where Geralt's just a blip on screen because the shot is from so far away:
"So for the action, if I’m going to take on a physical role, which has a lot of athleticism to it or whatever it may be, I’m going to bring myself up to that level so I can perform that role to the fullest. It’s important to me that the audience knows this and they see the character at all times. They see all the work that I put into designing this character in every single move, look, glance, shrug, walk, step. For the long shots, they were saying, we’re gonna save time because we don’t need you in the shot because it’s just so far away and I said well, has the person who you’re going to have double me studied the way I move as Geralt? And they were like, he’s your double, and this is so far away, it doesn’t matter, and I say, it does matter because that informs the audience about this character. What we, as human beings do, is we study people’s movement without even knowing it. We’re watching how humans interact with the world, how they interact with other people. We then make a decision upon them, whether it be minor or major decisions, it doesn’t matter. So watching Geralt, even from a distance, was very, very important to me and so with the action, it’s even more important."
Like, js, but I don't exactly think it's out of the realm of possibility that he had more of a hand in that than anyone and anything else given how weirdly obsessive he was when it came to the physicality of the role. (There's also Freya and Anya referring to the dehydration as "his" diet in this video, btw.)
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