Liam Hemsworth 'took ownership' of The Witcher role from day one
The Witcher star Liam Hemsworth, who has replaced Henry Cavill as Geralt on the hit fantasy drama, immediately threw himself into the role.
Liam Hemsworth "took ownership of the role" on his first day on The Witcher.
The 35-year-old actor has replaced Henry Cavill as the lead character Geralt on the fantasy drama show, and his co-star Joey Batey (Jaskier) revealed his new castmate "turned up and cared" from the get-go.
He told SFX magazine: "Every time a new person comes to the show, our job is to almost overwhelmingly welcome them.
"We're quite fervent about it. There's lots of hugging. There's lots of, 'Come here, we're going for a quick pint'.
"We did all of that with Liam. We all just went, 'Okay, you're part of the gang now'. And Liam took total ownership of the role from day one."
Joey explained how even during the first rehearsals, he arrived "with ideas about the script", and constantly discussed things with the team.
He added: "Those creative conversations with the showrunner continued, because he has the one thing that I would ask of any collaborator - he turned up and cared."
There was still plenty of time for jokes too, with Joey constantly getting the giggles on set.
He admitted: "It helps that we make each other laugh, too.
"I tend to be the one who's trying to make people corpse, but Liam can make me corpse pretty easily. We can get a bit mischievous occasionally."
Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich also told the outlet how they approached the idea of recasting the lead for the fourth season.
She said: "First of all, there was the acknowledgement that we're not trying to pull one over on the audience.
"We know that we're bringing in a new lead actor on the show. It hasn't been done a lot. It's a big risk.
"We're super excited about it, and so we need to be able to present that this is a different human being behind the white wig and yellow lenses."
Liam himself is a "massive fan of the video game" the show is based on, and so he was sure he could "bring something cool" to the role".
Lauren added: "I talked to Liam a lot about what he could bring to the character, because Geralt - there's not really a soft bone in his body, but I think there are moments of vulnerability that we play with in season four, where you get to see fear from Geralt."
