THE WITCHER Director Believes Henry Cavill Left the Series Because It Was Too Demanding
Henry Cavill's time on The Witcher series has come to an end, but he’s got several other film and TV projects in development that are going to keep him busy and happy. Cavill left the series after Season 3, and he was replaced by Liam Hemsworth, who will take on the role of Geralt, which a lot of fans are disappointed with.
We’ve heard a lot of different reasons as to why Cavill dropped out of The Witcher. At the time, he was set to reprise his role as Superman for DC, so some fans think he left for that. But, he never officially signed on to anything, and that proposed Superman project will never happen under James Gunn’s DC Studios rule.
Another reason given as to why he left was because he was frustrated with how the creative team was handling the adaptation and how they were deviating from the source material, which is something he expressed openly, so that is the most likely reason.
But now, series director Marc Jobst is saying that he believes Cavill left because the show was too demanding for the actor. He told ScreenRant:
"Well, look, Henry has done three series, these are demanding shows to make, you know, they are huge. Henry does every single beat of his stunts, he won't even allow a hand, if you're doing a close-up of a hand grabbing a sword, it has to be his hand. So, normally, what you do is you bring in a double, Henry will go off and shoot some other scene in which he's in somewhere else, and you get somebody else into the hand, so that you don't have to bother your number one. Henry won't do that, and as a result of that, the results are extraordinary. You're working with an incredible athlete, first and foremost, who works out hours before, and hours after, you've been shooting for 12 hours, and who cares deeply about the work that he does."
The director went on to say that the process can be "draining on your number one," suggesting that may have contributed to Cavill's decision to leave the series. Jobst also noted that "if he feels like he's done what he can, I trust him."
I honestly doubt that’s the reason. Cavill was obviously willing to put in the work to make this the best show that he possibly could. But, maybe with the direction the creative team was taking the series, putting in that hard badass work for something that he felt wasn’t up to his standards wasn’t worth it to him. He was putting all of his energy into this show and the creative team was taking the story and character in a direction he wasn’t happy with.
I don’t think it was the hard work itself because Cavill puts in that same hard work into all of his projects! He’s currently developing a Warhammer 40,000 cinematic universe with films and TV shows with Amazon, and you can bet that he’s going to put in the same kind of effort on those projects that he put into The Witcher, and he’s not going to ditch it because it gets too physical demanding for him. I think Cavill likes the physical demand!
Regardless, maybe one day Cavill will open up about his departure and give his own reasons as to why he left. Do you think the demanding nature of the show had an impact on Cavill's decision to leave?