Interview with the creators of The Witcher TV series: Superman's Geralt is unique

Lauren Hissrich, the creator of Netflix's "The Witcher," recently accepted an interview with Entertainment Weekly and introduced the behind-the-scenes information of the show. For example, she initially rejected Superman to play the White Wolf, but later after auditioning more than 200 characters, she finally chose Superman.

Lauren Hissrich said that The Witcher TV series will mainly refer to the original novels, not the video games.

"We will not adapt the video game because the video game itself is adapted from the novel. Their adaptation is wonderful. They chose one direction and we will choose another direction. There are many epic beginnings in the novel, but some short stories provide a lot of foundation for world building. The focus of our first season is to let the audience understand the cornerstone and governance of this world."

Q: How did you first come to think of The Witcher? Were you familiar with it at the beginning? Or did you catch up after being dismissed?

"It's both. I'd read The Last Wish before and loved it. But I wouldn't call myself a fantasy writer. I've done some comic book shows, I've done a lot of theatre, and I loved the novels when I read them, but I never thought I'd go down that path myself. When Netflix approached me, I read some of the short stories again and started to think about what I could do differently. The three main characters - Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri - were the first to emerge. If you take away the other fantasy elements, take away the magic, the violence and the sex, you still have these three characters who form a misplaced family who need each other but won't admit it. That was the most attractive thing to me."

Q: Are there completely evil people? Or very mysterious people?

"There are no mysterious characters, and there are no real villains. We are exploring the gray areas in the book. The person you support at the beginning may not be the person you support in the end. The people who seem to be absolutely evil that you hate actually have very ordinary human emotional motivations. I find that when I am writing and then watching it again, the people I support will often switch. You are always trying to put yourself in the shoes of certain characters. I think you will find that there are many unexpected characters in the play that you can empathize with in the end."

Q: It’s very important that Henry Cavill, who has starred in Superman and Mission: Impossible, join the show. How did this collaboration come about?

"Henry is a huge fan of the IP, he's read all the books, played all the Witcher games. I met him at the very beginning of the process and he said, 'I'd love to play the part' and I said, 'You'd be great, but we haven't even started casting yet'. Then I saw 207 other auditions for Geralt and came back to Henry. It was four months after our initial meeting, and I had been writing the script with Henry's voice in mind the whole time. I'm so happy to see the final product now. He is one of a kind in his embodiment of Geralt ."

Q: What kind of character is Geralt?

"In the novel, Geralt is silent most of the time. He's used to listening to everything around him and processing it in his heart. But you can't show how he processes it in a TV show. So in the first episode, I wrote a lot of dialogue for Geralt. Henry shot all of it, and in the editing stage, we started cutting out the dialogue. Henry's Geralt has a lot of emotional details, and you can understand what the character is going through without dialogue. By the time we got to episode 8, the end of the first season, we had shot less than half of the dialogue, because we knew Henry could present Geralt without lines."

Q: I noticed that the Geralt on Twitter didn't have yellow eyes. Are you planning to add them later, or are you going to scrap it altogether?

"He will definitely have something special that the readers of the novel will love to see. His appearance will be very memorable."

Q: What about Ciri? There is some controversy online about Ciri’s casting.

"When casting, you will definitely encounter this situation. A character already has a specific image in the minds of players. This series has millions of fans. We know that we can't please everyone. As for this controversy itself, we have considered all the candidates, and when we saw Freya, we immediately invited her. She is very unique. She is very young, but has a mature soul. She can show the depth of the character. When Freya and Henry are in the same frame, the collision of auras is very intense."

Q: I guess you guys are more of a PG-13 content rating strategy than a Game of Thrones?

"That's a very inaccurate guess. We're doing a daily rewatch and I'm not allowed to look at my screen anymore because once again they've sneaked in and seen something they shouldn't have and got shocked. This is a very adult show. For me, violence and sex are very important plot drivers, not just for the sake of attracting attention. I think the audience will be very discerning and can tell whether it's necessary for the plot or just for the sake of attracting attention."

Q: What will The Witcher bring to the fantasy realm?

"It's mainly monsters and horror. It occasionally appears in fantasy TV shows, but most of the time magic is the real protagonist. Geralt is a demon hunter, so from the very beginning we need to discuss how to show these monsters and enemies. I think the audience will be surprised by the variety of monsters and how integrated they are into the plot. The stories of these monsters will be the counterparts of major events in the real world."

White Wolf:

Ciri:

Yennefer: