The Witcher Boss Explains How The Show 'Alluded To' Liam Hemsworth's Recast As Geralt — Grade His Debut!

Warning: This article contains mild spoilers from the Season 4 premiere of Netflix's "The Witcher." Proceed with caution.

"The Witcher" has returned for its highly anticipated fourth season, and the Netflix drama wastes no time reintroducing Geralt of Rivia, now portrayed by Liam Hemsworth.

As showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich explains to TVLine, there was much discussion among the writers about how to properly address the fact that Henry Cavill is no longer playing the show's title character. 

Ultimately, the decision was made to "allude to it slightly in the opening sequence," during which a young girl named Nimue argues with an elder storyteller named Stribog that he's been sharing Geralt's tale incorrectly. Nimue believes that the true stories of Geralt's journey reside in a different book, the Jaskier-penned "A Half Century of Poetry," which she snatched from Strigo's shelf. Nimue also believes that she herself is destined to become part of the story, an idea that's expanded upon later in the season.

"We wanted to play with the idea, which is a huge theme in 'The Witcher,' of how stories change depending on who is telling them," Hissrich tells TVLine. "So obviously that opening sequence is played and there's a device, and you sense that, oh, maybe everything that we've seen over the last three seasons has been through someone's POV. Maybe that's not actually how it happened. We constantly love to be playing with the idea of narrative with our audience."

As Nimue takes over the story from Strigo, she provides the audience with a helpful recap of previous events, this time with Hemsworth appearing in the familiar scenes. Hissrich confirms to TVLine that the show "reshot pivotal moments" with Hemsworth as Geralt to hammer the point home.

"We wanted to not dance around the fact that this is a new human being," she explains. "Yes, there's still the yellow eyes and the silver wig, but at the same time, it's played by Liam now. For us, it was about revisiting these really important moments in Geralt's life, now seeing them embraced by a new human. Moving on, it's our hope that what you really start to see in Episode 1 is Geralt, not the actor that plays Geralt. That was Liam's commitment to the role, and it worked out beautifully. He really sunk into the character, so then we didn't feel the need to continue to address it."

For his part, Hemsworth spent several months prepping to debut as Geralt 2.0, trying out costumes and wigs and learning how to properly sword fight — which was helpful, because the first scene he shot ended up being that nasty scuffle against multiple Kikimoras.

"By the time I stepped on set, I was feeling really good," Hemsworth tells TVLine. "Those first days were daunting, and there's a lot of energy behind it, but I felt like I'd had a good chunk of time to get to know everyone and dig into the character and the world."

As Hemsworth notes, he's now been playing Geralt (off screen) for two-and-a-half years, explaining that "the more it goes on, the more connected you become with this character. You're sort of living and breathing in this person's head for such an extended period of time. It's a very intimate situation for you to live with the character and experience everything they're going through."

Speaking of "intimate situations," let's talk about Geralt's relationship with Yennefer. As Nimue says in Episode 1, their love is "one for the ages," though it feels like they're worlds apart when Season 4 picks up.

"We're in kind of a very different place this season to anywhere I've been in previous seasons as Yennefer," Anya Chalotra tells TVLine. "[She is] on a very separate journey [from Geralt and Ciri]. We've all got individual experiences."

For Yennefer, that means spending most of the season traveling and building an army of mages powerful enough to take down Vilgefortz. Fortunately (and this is only a mild spoiler), Geralt and Yennefer do reunite towards the end of Season 4 — and what a reunion it is!

"With the amount of fear that I was carrying as Yennefer, it was so important for Geralt's presence [to remain in] Yennefer's mind," Chalotra explains. "And when they do come together in this season, I hope fans feel what that means, because it meant a lot."

As for developing new chemistry with Hemsworth after playing opposite Cavill for three seasons, Chalotra tells TVLine, "It always come back to story, and these two people mean a lot to each other. They've been through a lot together, and now they're fighting for their child."

How do you feel about the way "The Witcher" chose to address (or "allude to") Geralt's recasting in Season 4? Grade the premiere in our poll below, then drop a comment with your own thoughts.