There’s a lot of ways Henry Cavill and Anya Chalotra could have played Geralt and Yennefer’s much-anticipated reunion in Season 2’s “Dear Friend.” Lucky for us, the actors had a say in the matter. In 2021, Cavill spoke with SYFY about the actors’ approach to the moment, and how it differed from the much more sexually-charged reconciliation the writers had in mind.
“We just wanted to be very careful that it was true and real,” he said, adding, “We wanted it to be emotional rather than sexual.” Bear in mind that when the pair first meet, Geralt believes Yennefer is dead, and Yennefer has no knowledge of Geralt or his decision to foster his child (Freya Allan’s Ciri). What’s more, the last time they spoke, the revelation that Geralt bound their fates together via the djinn led Yennefer to abandon him, presumably for good.
“These are people who believe one thing about the fate of another, and then find out something else is true,” he noted. Both actors wanted to illustrate what processing that information — as well as their pain, relief, regret, and joy — would actually look and feel like. “They just want to be with the person and emotionally recognize their existence again in that shared space,” Cavill said, adding, “So, Anya and I worked to make sure that that was an emotional beat rather than anything else.”
The effort paid off. Fantasy is, by definition, an over-the-top, unrealistic genre. But if the characters themselves are behaving fantastically, you lose the humanity that allows such an overtly make-believe world to speak, with any real relevance or meaning, to our own. All that’s left, at that point, is bad musical theater with more jewel tones, fewer songs, and even less relatability. Season 2’s reunion was an exquisitely performed team effort — one that gave audiences another side of Geralt and a greater awareness of what Cavill’s motivation did for both his character and the series.