Liam Hemsworth’s Geralt Is Actually Going to Smile Now on The Witcher

Big changes are coming in The Witcher season 4, the most obvious of which is the fact that the show is swapping out its lead actor for the show’s final two seasons, with The Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth officially taking up the mantle of Geralt of Rivia from Henry Cavill. No one knows quite what to expect from Hemsworth’s turn as the White Wolf, nor is anyone entirely sure this show can pull off a stunt like this in a satisfying way. 

Luckily for Hemsworth, Geralt’s story within the world of the show is at a point that lends itself very easily to change. Badly wounded and still sporting psychic damage from the battle with the dark sorcerer Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu), Geralt is probably as weak as we’ve ever seen him, which means season 4 is a perfect moment to reevaluate where the character is in his personal journey. The series’s third season concluded with Geralt determined to find Ciri (Freya Allan), though his search will likely take him in the wrong direction, chasing the false version who has been raised up by Emhyr.

The journey to track down his Child of Surprise will see Geralt forge new relationships—with last season’s new addition, Milva (Meng’er Zhang), and the ragtag D&D party-esque group of friends he acquires, known as his hansa. But they will also involve a shift in attitude that (get this) actually allows Geralt to smile sometimes. 

“Liam has such a cheeky grin, and it is one of the very first things that we actually talked about when we had our first Zoom ever,” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich told IGN in a wide-ranging conversation. “One of the things that he talked a lot about was for this dry wit that Geralt has, and that, in all honesty, he didn’t feel like was very present in the show. It was something he asked if I would be open to seeing more of.”

According to Hemsworth, this isn’t just a personal choice for him as an actor, but a reflection of where Geralt is emotionally at this point in the show. 

“I wanted it to be able to show these moments of him opening up a little more,” Hemsworth told IGN. “My interpretation of this character is Geralt is a deeply empathetic person. As much as he’s lived a very isolated life, and is reluctant to open up to people or be vulnerable with people, apart from, say, Ciri and Yen and Jaskier… [At] this point in the story, we’re really seeing him go through a lot of changes. So I wanted to earn those moments. Because when we find him, he’s dealing with doubt. He’s struggling. He’s really unsure about himself… He’s injured right now, so he’s unsure whether, even if he does find Ciri, if he’s actually going to be able to save her, if he has the strength and the ability to save her.”

Featuring a Geralt who is more emotionally expressive than the traditional grunts and growls we’ve come to associate with the character isn’t just a stylistic choice either. For Hissrich, depicting joy in the face of despair is an important element of the story the series is telling, no matter how dark it might get.

“There is nothing better than when Geralt finds joy and humor, especially in the people that he’s with,” Hissrich said. “We have a producer, Tomasz Bagínski, who is Polish and who has spoken from the very beginning about how important it is that even in these stories of war and violence and misery, that people continue living their daily lives, and that it’s normal to joke, to deal with trauma, it’s normal to have good conversations, to smile, even when things are going to shit. And so that was really great to see in dailies again, that we were able to bring that flavor back.”

The Witcher season 4 premieres October 30 on Netflix.