Exclusive: Henry Cavill’s Witcher season 2 costume has been transformed to improve action scenes
The Witcher‘s costumes have become even more badass.
Big changes have been made to evolve the fantasy drama for its second season, according to star Henry Cavill’s costume designer Lucinda Wright.
Almost two years after the first season, season 2 sees monster hunter Geralt, aka Witcher, return for five more episodes, while a third season has already been commissioned.
In The Witcher, Geralt has supernatural abilities and lives in a world called ‘the Continent,’ populated by elves, werewolves and vampires.
The show documents the formative experiences of Geralt and Princess Cirilla (Freya Allan), alongside sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra), who live in a morally corrupt land.
Top of the list of changes for season 2 is Cavill’s costume, which has been modified to make action scenes even better – and more realistic.
“It was about how to, in my eyes, make him that killer.
“I met him for a sit down for an hour to hear what he thought about season 1 and the armour,” Wright exclusively tells JOE. “It was about how to, in my eyes, make him that killer. How to make him moveable.
“With Henry’s body, all you need to do is just show it off really.”
One major change has been to give the costume more movability to improve action scenes – so moving the sword from the front to the back of the suit was integral.
“It was really important to me to remove it from the front and have it rigged it in at the back,” says Wright. “We rigged it up so that it’s tied on a buckle at the front, that it keeps the front clear and all the action is at the back.
“Henry can actually raise his arm and touch his sword, which was really important to him and me because in season one his arm couldn’t go any further because of the design.”
Together the duo conceived eight new sets of armour.
Reflecting on the new looks, Wright adds: “With the principal characters, I didn’t just come in and change it, I evolved it.”
There’s also a new on-body holder for Geralt’s elixirs. “When I met Henry I said, ‘where do your elixirs come from?’ and he said ‘they came out of nowhere,’ so I said ‘why don’t we make something?’” remembers Wright of the design process.
“Henry said ‘why not something on my leg?’ so we made a contraption. I kept the studding as I wanted to keep some link to the first season’s armour.”
On the overall look of the show, Wrights says costumes “should be believable, even though it is a medieval fantasy.” The show’s styles are “realistic” even though The Witcher imagines a fantastical universe, she believes.
The Witcher was created by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich for Netflix and is based on the fantasy novels of the same name by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski.
The Witcher season 2 is streaming on Netflix now.
Related links:
- Henry Cavill cast as Geralt for Netflix’s The Witcher
- Henry Cavill on building bigger arms with limited gym time
- Henry Cavill ‘pushing to be the next James Bond’
