To say Henry Cavill was a perfect casting choice for Netflix’s acclaimed The Witcher series is an understatement, to say the least.
Despite already having the perfect physique and physical fitness required to portray Geralt of Rivia thanks, in part, to his Superman commitments, Cavill has spoken to great length about his own love of Andrzej Sapkowski’s creation and the subsequently massively popular video games it spawned. CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 3 is often considered to not only be one of this decade’s best games but one of the best of all time as well thanks to its technical mastery and deep, intriguing narrative.
Cavill, it transpires, considered himself a massive Witcher fan long before Netflix opted to begin production on its own adaptation, having first discovered the budding franchise with the aforementioned third game installment.
Speaking to GQ, he said: “My first involved experience [with the franchise] was The Witcher 3.” Revealing to the website that he’d already seen Geralt’s adventure through to its conclusion two-and-a-half times prior to landing the role, Cavill says subsequent playthroughs after the first were on the game’s toughest difficulty setting, a decision he’d later come to regret as a passionate escapist gamer looking for stress-free entertainment.
It’s all well and good when you’re trying not to stress out, but then I realised I wasn’t chilling out. I just ended up dying at the wrong points and thinking, ‘I should not have left the roads. I don’t know why I left the roads.’ I couldn’t run away fast enough or my attention span dropped for a second or I answered a text and now I’m dead and that’s six or seven hours of gameplay that I’ve just messed up.
Lesson learned, then, but The Witcher is far from the only game Cavill loves to play as a means to unwind. Citing Creative Assembly’s real-time strategy title Total War: Warhammer II as one of his current favorites, Cavill beams, “there’s just something about those games that I find so satisfying,” adding, “there’s new DLCs coming out all the time and I’m looking forward to whatever the next one is.”
As to how the star manages to juggle solid gaming sessions alongside a busy filming schedule is a mystery that, sadly, isn’t revealed, though we imagine with a second season of The Witcher already on the way, the former might require a reduction.