[tense music playing]
-[hooves galloping] -[eerie voice growling]
[indistinct yelling]
[dramatic music playing]
[yelling continues]
[man grunts]
[music crescendos]
[music fades out]
[Cavill] My initial interest in The Witcher
came from a chance experience with The Witcher games.
Then I heard that Netflix were making a show
and so, I-- I hunted down the opportunity to play Geralt
and when I'd spoken to-- had my first meeting with Lauren...
she had mentioned that it was based on the books.
The books, I absolutely loved,
and they are an extraordinary source of a wonderful story.
[Hissrich] So, Andrzej Sapkowski wrote this series of books.
Talking to him about it is fascinating.
He traveled all over the world as a traveling salesman,
and he started to write the original short story of The Witcher
and submitted it to a magazine and it got published,
but he had never intended for--
for it to take hold the way that it took hold.
-[loud crash] -[shrieking]
[Cavill] There's something unique about the way...
Andrzej Sapkowski wrote... wrote The Witcher.
It's a-- a harsh yet relatable world with some extraordinary characters in it.
-The south needed reminding who was Queen. -[cheers]
[Hissrich] What excited me the most when I went to pitch Netflix...
What did you wish for?
[Hissrich] ...was planting all of the seeds
of Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer coming together.
[whispers] Find Geralt of Rivia.
[Hissrich] It took me a while. I went through several versions.
And then I-- I literally had one of those "Aha!" moments in the shower.
"Can I tell all three of these stories at the same time
and not have it be too confusing?"
It's been interesting because I do think that
television audiences are really savvy now.
And as a writer, as a creator, we have that on our side.
So, we do jump through time a lot,
but I think it's an exciting journey for fans and for, you know,
even audiences that have never seen The Witcher before.
[Duny grunts]
-[Geralt grunts] -[knight yelps]
So, what's really interesting is digging into these stories,
and one of the first things that I did when I sold The Witcher
is I booked a plane ticket to Poland because I was really interested
why this book series was so important to this nation
and how it reflected the spirits of the people
and that was important to me for developing the series as a whole.
[Bagiński] Witcher is a big part of myself, I think.
Witcher became part of my...
brain and body and mind a long time ago.
But for the rest of the world, Witcher is a great story,
it's a great character, it's a great world.
For kingdom and glory.
Tomek Bagiński, who's one of our Polish producers,
he's very well-versed on the books and the lore of The Witcher
and there are certain things that are not necessarily described in the scripts.
We would run those things by Tomek and his team
to make sure we were staying true to the source material.
[Bagiński] It's a big part of the pop culture history of Poland,
which is also, I think, quite important.
And...
it's a game, it's a book, it's a TV show,
it's plenty of things.
It's very, very hard to just box Witcher into a very simple explanation.
And I hope that we can present this world
to... a much, much wider audience.
I like to say that, for the series,
we actually get to find the story
that's happening between the lines in the books.
We're trying to be a really true representation of the books
and trying to honor that material,
but the books also skip over a lot of things.
That's my lute. Give that back!
[Bagiński] There were a lot of new ideas coming from the writers' room,
which, eh, some of their--
some of those ideas were very risky, but all of them were brilliant.
In the writers' room for The Witcher,
we get together and we bat around ideas for a while
until we have a clearer picture of what we're doing for this season,
and once we do that, we go into individual episodes
and draw from the books.
Like, "What from the books do we want to bring into this season?"
Once we decide that,
Lauren sends us off and we write our individual scripts
and we have certain story lines
that carry through from one episode to another
that we keep batting back and forth
to make sure that we're always giving new information to the audience.
When you get assigned a script, it, uh--
It's very exciting because, "Oh, I'm dealing with this story, great!"
When I got Law of Surprise, people were like,
[sharp inhale] "Glad I didn't get that one!"
because it is tough to explain.
Asking for payment with the Law of Surprise
is as old as mankind itself.
-Don't lecture me, Eist. -[Eist] It's an honest gamble...
as likely to be rewarded with a... bumper crop,
as a newborn pup or...
a child of surprise.
Trying to get that out, [chuckles] in a script and in a way
where the actor doesn't look at you and just slap you, it was difficult.
But that's essentially what it is,
the Law of Surprise, in a nutshell, is claiming something...
from the person, em... that is a surprise.
When they return to that house, whatever the first thing they encounter
that they didn't know they had before they left... that's it.
Fuck.
Yeah, it's just--
it's a lot of different ideas with a lot of different perspectives,
which is important, I think, for The Witcher
because it is ultimately... kind of about all these different groups,
whether it be elves, gnomes, dwarves, and their perspectives on the world.
So to have the room also, kind of, represent that type of diversity
is-- is very useful for the storytelling.
[anguished scream]
What's great about this and what we've done with the story is
we've focused on the humanity and all those human struggles.
[Hissrich] One thing that most interested me is the women in the books.
They're very, very strong women, um, that are surrounding Geralt,
the protagonist.
And I asked Andrzej,
I said, "You know, for books written during the 80s,
I'm really surprised the women are so strong."
And he said to me, "You know, you've never met my mother, have you?"
His point was that for a nation that was so war-torn,
um, had so much conflict,
they-- they lost a lot of their men, um, in those conflicts,
and women became quite the centers of communities
and even the workplace, not just homes.
That's the spirit that Andrzej brought into these books.
These characters are survivors.
[indistinct yelling, grunts]
When I got the audition through, um, there were two scenes,
which had been written for the audition,
and, um, one of them was between her and Geralt
and she was kind of very... feisty and stubborn.
And then in the other scene, she had...
She was trying to convince someone not to stay and die, and she was...
You could really see, like, her heart in it,
and, um, and a more, kind of, gentle side to her.
So, I liked the fact that she had both of those
just shown through these audition scenes and it wasn't just like,
"Oh, she's going to be a really cool, badass girl,"
which is brilliant, but it also showed
another strength, which is-- which is more gentle and kind and soft.
It must have been such an undertaking to try and find an actress
that can really, um, embody a character like Ciri,
just because it comes from such lore but also it's such an important character.
There's so much that Ciri brings.
Ciri is this world, you know, she's the key for almost every character.
I mean, she's the element that brings everyone together.
Every time she's on the screen, there is something truly
special about her, there's something magical,
there's something in her eyes,
and I do think that speaks to the character
and, you know, that Ciri's got that thing inside her
and she's young, she doesn't quite know what it is yet,
and I think Freya's done an amazing job at bringing that character to life.
So, we went through the books and we found all of the places
where Andrzej had talked about these characters' pasts
and then we wove those things together into a sort of new story
for both Ciri and for Yennefer
to make sure we're really digging into their backgrounds,
because to me, find the character, learn the character
and then see how they change when they meet one another.
That's the most exciting part.
Before we met,
the days were calm...
and the nights were restless.
But now...
you're important to me.
[fire crackling]
You get the rough idea when you're in the room
of what this is gonna be and you beat it out.
"These people are gonna go here, that's gonna go there."
Then you have the joyous part where you get to go home as a writer,
by yourself, outside the room, and come up with cool shit.
And monsters, it's like,
"This is the greatest thing, I get to write monsters!"
Who doesn't want to do that?
[rapid drumming]
The world of monsters and men... in Witcher,
those worlds are blended and it's very, very hard to--
to put a straight line and say, "Okay, this is where the humans starts,
this is where monster world starts."
[Hissrich] The Continent that we know was actually, um, inhabited by elves.
And when the Conjunction of the Spheres happened,
it really opened the floodgates for monsters, a lot of monsters.
[growls]
One of the very interesting things about how these...
species interact...
is...
that some aren't from this place, which we call the Continent,
and indeed all the monsters that populate the Continent,
some are from there, some are created by magic,
and others,
even though they're monsters, or considered monsters,
are from a different place or multiple different places
and they...
probably view mankind...
just as much as monsters as we view them.
That's all due to something called the Conjunction of the Spheres.
It's exactly what it sounds like:
it is a bunch of different dimensions smashing into each other
and-- and changing the world as we know it.
[DeMayo] It's really just a refugee situation.
All these creatures and beings from another universe
got dumped on this Continent that's not theirs, as refugees,
and the humans were the ones who were barbaric enough,
war hungry enough,
and also co-opted magic from the Elder Races,
to actually take the Continent over and push the elves out of their lands.
In a strange way,
all the inhabitants of this world are the guests in this world.
Something was here before.
We don't know the details,
but monsters, dwarves, humans,
they-- they all came later.
Because we were looking holistically at the world we were creating,
I took on the creature concept design
and for a large number of the creatures,
got to, kind of, do the initial concept design for those
that then was handed off either to prosthetics,
uh, to create physical creatures,
or to VFX, um,
to then create the three-dimensional models or the animated versions.
[man screaming]
And then, a lot of the creatures that we were involved with,
eh, were a combined effort with the visual effects department
because, sometimes,
it was a creature that was entirely drawn
by the visual effects department
but certain parts of it were built by us
so that there could be, like, physical contact, uh, with the actors.
Sometimes it was fully built as a creature.
One of the most interesting things about doing some of the creature creation
was working with Tomek Bagiński and talking back and forth
about Slavic mythology and fairy tales
and bringing certain elements into the creatures
that are true to those stories.
[basilisk snarling]
-[Geralt grunts] -[basilisk roars]
We talk about monsters a lot in Witcher world,
but actually, in the original books,
Witcher is not fighting with monsters that often
because this is the moment in the history of the world
where the monsters are
pushed from their natural habitats by people,
and, at some point, we realized
that maybe the monsters are the ones who need protecting.
[loud roar]
[Hissrich] The stories take place in a place called the Continent,
capital C, Continent.
It is a big world that we will continue to explore all through the series.
I think the thing that was most intriguing about this project is world-building.
Um, this was a real opportunity
to create an environment from the ground up.
And for a production designer, that's, you know, that's gold dust.
We wanted to give the Continent a slightly more global feel.
In many ways, the Witcher world has a very European basis
and we felt,
discussing this very early on, that we wanted to grow that--
that world with influences from lots of other places,
lots of other cultural references.
We looked to, you know, Japanese architecture,
Indian architecture, Middle Eastern architecture,
where we could give the Continent a sense of scale,
um, so we didn't feel like it's all happening in one region.
So playing a bit with... architectural realities,
the architecture, let's say of Aretuza,
like the external visage of the Thanedd Island is quite elevated.
You know, there's a bit of a question of like, "Wow, where did that come from?
How was it achieved?"
'Cause we want to juxtapose that with the more human architecture of-- of,
"Okay, we understand how a castle gets built,"
um, but I think mixing those two things up is really important.
It is set in a sort of medieval period, but having said that,
um, the influences that I chose to use were gothic influences of all periods.
So, I chose those, plus a lot of high fashion.
And, um, another sort of idea
that I brought into it was using fabric manipulation,
which is kind of, at the moment, quite a high fashion, relevant technique,
but it has actually been used throughout history,
which relatively means just, sort of, pleating, draping,
um, smocking, different ways of creating flat fabric into a textured fabric
without the addition, say, of like adding trims,
or, sort of, any kind of, like, an addition.
So, it creates sort of an architectural shape
and visually creates an interesting surface to the costume.
As far as the world goes, with the costumes and the sets,
it-- it feels to me like a found world.
It's not that we're make-believing or creating,
it feels like we've found this world, and for a story like The Witcher,
I think that's really important because it grounds it in reality.
One of the big things that was discussed was that
this is not an earthbound history;
you know, the Continent is the Continent and it has its own set of rules.
It has the Elder Races and there's a history
and there's the monoliths, and there's a-- there...
We're sort of peeling away layers of the onion
and beginning to do so in series one and there are a lot more layers that come.
So, we wanted to be able to hint at that, sort of tease a little bit
what might be revealed as we get further into the story.
It's a world of magic, and because of that, it's--
it's limitless, you can do anything...
I did it!
...but with that comes a hell of a lot of struggle as well, and danger.
It's a very dark...
[man] Now!
[Chalotra] ...violent world.
Where we, sort of, dig into that on a really practical level is-- is,
uh, how does magic work in our series?
Magic is really interesting; we call it "chaos."
And the cool thing about playing with chaos is that
we always say there's a give and take to it.
What we didn't want to do is have a show where our characters could perform magic
to get in or out of any tricky situation.
There's no, sort of, drama there.
I'm doing it!
Your hand!
[panicked shrieks]
[piercing screams]
[Ndiweni] Chaos is everywhere.
We live in a world where there will be and there is a lot of chaos,
and there are some people who have the ability to take chaos
and make it into something positive
or contain it in a way that it's no longer dangerous.
[Chalotra] Magic is...
It comes to people in different ways,
depending on where it's inherited from,
and the way you channel it, there's a discipline to it and...
not everyone can do it.
When we started filming, shooting,
you know it says, "...and Mousesack conjures a wall,"
or conjures something up and, you know, y-you stand with your director
and, um, Lauren Hissrich, the showrunner,
you say, "Okay, this is how I think Mousesack should,
um, bring the energy into the room
and, um, what do you think?"
[laughing] And-- and so we try stuff.
Um, it has to be otherworldly and it should come from something unique
that you feel would give you a powerful energy
and, um, in the end, you know,
it's very still, and out of the chaos comes control.
-[people screaming] -[Yennefer breathing heavily]
[Chalotra] Initially, from the audition...
[Yennefer grunts]
[Chalotra] ...I didn't really know anything about Yennefer.
It was the power she had in the scene that I was playing,
and...
then I looked, obviously, researched the character and...
got to know her from the books.
[Chalotra laughing]
Um, I was curious as to why she was presenting herself in the way she was
and I was...
and I wanted to figure out what her struggle was.
And I think for any actor...
um...
that-- the arc that she goes through
is an incredible challenge.
And I-I love discovering more about her
the more I read and the more I play her, I suppose.
Anya has brought a depth to the role of Yennefer that is extraordinary.
I think fans and newcomers to the story will absolutely fall in love with her.
It was so important to get a character, or an actress rather,
who could really go through the transformation that was needed,
could really play a young girl,
who physically had the chops
to be able to play with a disfigurement that Yennefer has, um,
and then to go through the transformation into an incredibly powerful figure,
but also a figure who is torn, who's absolutely desperately torn.
So you needed somebody who really had the chops to do that,
and Anya delivers that
in spades.
[gentle guitar music playing]
At the heart of our series are Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri.
And what's fun in the first season,
is that they're never all three in the same place at the same time.
They're kind of on a crash course to one another.
I think the parallel timelines
I think is a really interesting mechanism to tell the story
and I think something that's interesting about those parallel stories
is when you first start to watch this, you're going to watch it through one lens,
then when you get to a certain point you realize these stories will converge,
I think it's really interesting to then go back and to relook
and you can look for moments where someone's taking a look to somebody else
and you see it through a completely different...
through a completely different lens.
[indistinct chatter]
[Hissrich] The great thing about Destiny is Destiny is an end
based on the choices that you make.
So, that's how we kind of see this first season,
as a series of choices
that lead these characters toward one another.
And I think that what Lauren and her team wrote so well
was characters that made sense, that actually felt like you and me,
that were actually normal people in the fantasy world,
and I think that's why the series will be so strong.
So, it's that we feel for these people because we understand them.
I think everyone likes to see themselves in stories, don't they?
I mean, that's why we all watch television,
it's why we all read books or go to the movies or play video games.
You want to find how you are represented.
[baby cries]
I think that's... When you're coming into a world like this,
it's finding those metaphors
for, you know, adolescence,
which is what Ciri's journey is in some cases.
It's, "Oh my gosh, I have this magical power
and I don't know what's going on with my body."
That's adolescence for so many people, male or female,
and it's kind of finding those touchstones where you can take the fantastical
and root it in something that everybody can kind of relate to
and has experienced in their own lives.
[Allan] Geralt has being orphaned as a child as well,
so I think it's a massive thing is, um...
[indistinct chatter]
...is people...
being together and having people around
that care for you, and I think that's what they're all after.
What I like about our adaptation and about what we are doing here
is a very, very heavy focus on emotions and the relationships.
I think it's-- it's just beautiful.
And all those things are in the books,
and they are very, very important in the books,
but I think we are giving it even more attention
and we are bringing it into a different level.
One of the great elements, of course, of this story, which is...
I'm very glad that Lauren
and her team of incredible writers has kept,
because I think it's a very important part of this world, is the humor,
and it can be very funny at times, within the destruction and the darkness.
There's always these pops of humor.
What I love about what Henry has brought to the character,
and, in fact, the writers have brought to the whole piece...
it's almost--
I mean, you can say it's modern,
but you can also say, actually, it's timeless humor.
Why are you dressed like a sad silk trader?
And also the way Henry does the humor,
uh, brings his humor,
because he has a giggle about him, he has a tickle about him, very much so.
Everyone loves a white knight, but a white knight with a dry
and slightly off sense of humor
is-- is more enjoyable to watch and to play.
I've watched Henry and Joey do some of their scenes
and I think there's definitely a bit of - I always say this -
there's definitely a bit of a Shrek and Donkey relationship going on there.
Come on, Geralt, tell me. Be honest.
How's my singing?
[water splashing]
It's like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling.
I remember the email coming in about 24 hours before the audition,
panicking so... so strongly because I realized
how fantastic the role of Jaskier really was.
My sister, at the time, she said,
"How are you doing? What's going on? There's something's different about you."
And I said, "Yeah, have a read of this character."
And her response was, "Joey, are we in a dream that you are having?
Because this is so perfect."
You have the most incredible neck.
-It's like a-- a sexy goose. -[Geralt groans]
And from then on, throughout the audition process
and also landing the role, everything felt incredibly exciting
but weirdly normal.
This was... meant to happen.
Every single day has been an exploration in that natural feeling
and feeling at home, and finding, creating a new family.
Run away. Run away, Geralt! Oh God!
Geralt!
Had to get it from the inside. I'll take what I'm owed.
♪ Toss a coin to your Witcher O, Valley of Plenty ♪
♪ Whoa-ho-ho ♪
[all] ♪ Toss a coin... ♪
[Batey] This song, uh, uh...
was written by our composers, Sonya and Giona, who are...
uh, who went through various different versions of it.
Eventually, what we found was, em...
was a folk-like quality to this song that we really wanted it to...
to travel across this land,
to be...
reminiscent of those folk songs of the days of yore
where there's a Celtic twang to it.
But also there's a slightly "Pop-y" catch.
It's a fantastic thing for Jaskier to be able to bring to...
to the Continent, and for the composers to bring to the show,
is that it is an exercise in PR.
He starts to come up with this song
and Geralt of Rivia immediately notices that he says...
That's not how it happened.
Where's your new-found respect?
Respect doesn't make history.
[Batey] And I think he understands...
hu-- people...
in a-- in a different way to Geralt.
He understands that in order to make your way in this world,
sometimes you've got to fudge the edges a little bit.
♪ Toss a coin to your Witcher Oh, valley of plenty ♪
♪ Hee ♪
[indistinct shouting]
There's a huge amount of action in the series,
and to reflect the diversity of the stories,
um, we've had a stunt coordinator who's overseeing the entire season,
Franklin Henson,
um, who's done a phenomenal job,
uh, at just constantly creating and managing action through the season.
Um, but then to help reflect the diversity of the different stories,
we've also brought people in
to come and bring different flavors in the action.
We brought on a fight coordinator,
Wolfgang,
who has come to help us
um, with some of the fights that are early on in the season.
-Everything is A-okay. -[Wolfgang laughing]
It's... He's a positive Witcher.
[Emanuel] The moment where Geralt is faced with,
uh, these brigands with Renfri's gang.
And I think it's interesting because we've teased at what Geralt can do
but, at this moment, we haven't seen what he can do,
and you end up in a Mexican standoff in this town,
where he's faced with these seven bad guys.
[Cavill grunting]
[man 1 groans]
[man 2 chuckling]
[man 3] Cameras cut, thank you.
[people laughing]
[Emanuel] We're incredibly lucky to have Henry as our, uh, as our Geralt.
He brings that quiet resolve and that natural strength,
obviously, that he has.
He does all his own stunts, which is a producer's worst nightmare.
If it's Geralt on the screen, that's Henry...
and he will probably have ten days of training to do those fights
and it's interesting because what the fight team will do
is to really lean into Henry's strengths.
I mean, he is a, you know, he is a huge strong person,
um, and, uh...
And it's really interesting when you lean into people's, you know, natural skills
how much more believable something looks.
But, yeah, it's about ten days of rehearsals
for a fight that we'll shoot in two days,
that will be on screen for about two minutes.
And the idea is that, it's to really have, like, great set pieces,
um, that reflect the diversity of the stories.
And I think it's really exciting that you can watch a whole season
and it's never gonna feel like "same-y" action,
it's all very different.
-[rumbling] -[swooshing]
The Witcher stories, I mean, it touches on everything we're dealing with now:
the fallout of colonialism,
class disparity with the haves and the have-nots,
indigenous cultures getting fucked over,
racism, sexism.
The world gone mad.
People having power that shouldn't have power,
people rising up, constant flux.
This world is an ocean and is a tempest and that's what The Witcher is.
If I had to boil it down, I would say that the themes...
the theme that resonates with me most is, sort of,
blurring the lines of good and evil.
And it's my goal that that's what people talk about after they watch the show,
is that we've worked really hard to make sure there's not really good guys
or bad guys in our world.
If you start watching episode one, the person that you think is good
that you think is the hero of the story,
by the end, you may feel very differently about
because, suddenly, you have a different perspective.
But love... is one of the strong themes...
and...
its ability to change a person.
And I think something that's interesting is as we've gone along we've all learnt
kind of what the...
what the tone of the show is and who these characters are,
and it's really interesting as we go on to continue to develop that.
Again, I think it's really exciting to see where the show will go to next.
[somber violin music playing]
[Bagiński] It's a dream come true.
It's one of those situations where you're really fighting for something
for so long that you stop believing that it will happen and suddenly it happens.
Excited?
I am, all the time.
It's just a great adventure.
[Hissrich] I wanted to introduce the world to the three of them at the same time
and allow them each to really flourish as characters on their own.
And it's really fun to sort of track each of them
and see that they do need each other, they really do need family.
["The Song Of The White Wolf" by Declan de Barra playing]
Above all of that,
how are Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer going to factor into this Continent
that is at war and appears to be at war over Ciri?
[music continues]
So, there's so much set up.
Stick with us, there's much more to come.
[music continues]
♪ The Song of the White Wolf ♪
♪ Is cold as driven snow ♪
♪ Bear not your eyes upon him ♪