Who said being a bard is easy? Joey Batey, who plays Jaskier – the minstrel and best friend to monster hunter Geralt – in The Witcher, has revealed some challenges he faced filming the new season of the Netflix TV series.
In The Witcher season 2, fans see Jaskier captured by Rience (Chris Fulton), who proceeds to torture him for information about his pal Geralt (Henry Cavill) and Ciri (Freya Allan). In an interview with Digital Spy, Batey described how shooting those brutal scenes were “really hard” and detailed all the behind-the-scenes struggles he had to face both physically and emotionally. “It was really, really hard. A lot of the scenes that you see that look indoors are actually outdoors. So it was freezing cold that day, in the middle of winter,” Batey explained. “You do have to go into a bit of a dark place for a very, very long time to get through that.”
The actor described how the taxing scenes continued to affect him even once the director called cut. “I’m literally tied to this chair for about 12 hours because I’m doing it all and putting it all back on again,” Batey said.
“It’s really, really… It can be really draining, and you go to bed that night with a lot of stuff floating around your head. You’ve got to drum up some really dark stuff in your head in order to go to those sort of places,” the star continued. “But that was a tough day…. I can never let go of Jaskier until I wrap, and then I sleep for a month. I usually get sick. My body usually goes, ‘And rest.'”
Luckily it seems like Batey’s co-stars and the crew of the hit fantasy TV series all had his back during the difficult time. “Thankfully, I’m surrounded by people who kind of know me. You can easily just go, ‘Joey needs a banana, and he needs it now because his blood sugar’s just dropped,'” He said. “The whole gang on this show, it’s been like that, where you get to know everyone so quickly.”
It’s good to know that The Witcher cast and crew have each other’s backs – since, let’s be honest, if you can’t trust demon hunters who can you trust, am I right? The Witcher season 2 is now available to watch exclusively on the streaming service Netflix.