Adapting Andrzej Sapkowski's acclaimed fantasy franchise The Witcher as a Netflix original television series was a particularly ambitious task for showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich, who helped develop the stories and characters from the novels and short stories.
While the franchise's main protagonist Geralt of Rivia handled most of the exposition in the books, Hissrich changed the series' approach to the character after work began on its pilot episode. Hissrich noted that star Henry Cavill's performance conveyed much to the audience without the need to constantly deliver dialogue.
"In the first episode, when I originally wrote it, Geralt spoke a lot because that’s what he’s like in the books. People always think of Geralt as stoic, but in the books he talks nonstop. When we were on set and especially when we got in the cutting rooms, we realized we didn’t actually need all that exposition," recalled Hissrich in an interview with Collider. "Henry brings such a depth and layered performance to Geralt that we don’t need him to tell us everything he’s feeling."
As production on the first season continued, the writing team began revising scripts to trim Geralt's dialogue, making more of his performance nonverbal while being sure to stay true to the spirit of the character in Sapowski's stories.
"He can do it in a single look or a grunt. He grunts a lot. We immediately started pulling back on that and by the time we shot the final episode, the script much more matches what’s onscreen because together we really learned what was working," explained Hissrich. "In that way, we honored a lot of what’s in the books but also made sure it works for the guy that you see onscreen."
The Witcher stars Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer of Vengerberg, Freya Allan as Ciri and Joey Batey as Jaskier. The series is available on Netflix.
(via Cinema Blend)