Joey Batey, who stars as Jaskier in The Witcher and the upcoming prequel series The Witcher: Blood Origin, has shared his thoughts on Henry Cavill’s exit from The Witcher, and Liam Hemsworth’s recasting. It was recently announced that The Witcher season 3 would be Cavill’s last outing as the Geralt of Rivia. He would be departing the fantasy series and, what’s more, Liam Hemsworth would be taking up the mantle from season 4 onwards.
The news provoked much discussion as to whether Hemsworth would be able to live up to the standards set by Cavill, whose performance was regarded as one of the TV series‘ main strengths. Now Joey Batey, who plays one of Geralt’s main companions Jaskier, has provided his thoughts on Cavill’s exit and the recasting.
We sat down to have a conversation with Joey Batey about his upcoming role in The Witcher: Blood Origin, and asked him about the situation. He said “I am looking forward to working with Liam. I really am. I’ve been talking to him a little bit since the announcement. And he is just like, he’s throwing himself into the deep end with this with such aplomb.”
He continued “I don’t want to just kind of continue what we’ve been doing, because every season, Jaskier and Geralt’s relationship continues and grows and merges in lots of different ways and strengthens. So that friendship is going to be different, even if Henry were playing it.”
Then, he spoke about his responsibility to help maintain a level of continuity despite the departure. Batey said “So I’m just looking forward to the challenge and seeing what Liam brings. Because Jaskier is such a responsive, reactive human being and an incredibly empathetic human being. My job is to take as much of what Liam is bringing, and to keep that going and keep the ball in the air as well. And so it’s going to be really exciting and challenging, I think.”
Given the relationship between Batey’s character Jaskier and Geralt, Batey is one of the people who will be most impacted by the change. And, it sounds like he’s excited about new possibilities rather than nervous about the shift.