News The Witcher The Witcher Showrunner on What Will (and Won’t) Change in Season 4 With Liam Hemsworth as the New Geralt It turns out one can smile AND do monster murders. By Molly Templeton | Published on October 16, 2025 Image: Netflix Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Netflix Last week, fans got their first real look at the fourth season of The Witcher—the first to star Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia, the role previously played by Henry Cavill. The action-packed trailer visits all the major players, including Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer and Freya Allan’s Ciri, but the biggest spotlight is on Hemsworth, and the question of how well he fits into Geralt of Rivia’s leather pants. IGN has an in-depth conversation with Hemsworth and Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich about the upcoming season: what’s changed, what hasn’t, and what the recasting means for the show as a whole and for its new star. It’s a really interesting, thoughtful piece, one that gives Hemsworth and Hissrich a chance to really dig into how they think about Geralt, and what an actor may bring to—or discard—from a role as iconic as this one. What Hissrich saw in Hemsworth was soul. She tells IGN: What I really loved about Liam’s work that I had seen is that he was able to organically blend those two things. He didn’t have physical scenes and then emotional scenes. He was able to really carry this specific, I guess I call it soul. He has a soul that he brings into the role… To have that present even through action scenes when he’s fighting monsters, and it’s the same thing that’s present when he’s having conversations with Ciri or with Yennefer, that was a really special thing that we were able to capture. And when I had watched some of his work, specifically going back to Hunger Games, that’s something that I felt from him. She notes that recasting is not just a matter of getting the new guy into the right costume; it affects everything about the role, right down to how the lines are written: “Even once we wrote all the scripts, once we started filming them, we started making adjustments to make sure that things sounded more natural coming out of Liam’s mouth.” And this season, what comes out of Geralt’s mouth might be a little wordier than before, and he may be a little more likely to smile. Hissrich says that the upcoming episodes see Geralt opening up a bit with his newfound friends. “We brought back some grunting and some sighing and some humming and certainly some ‘fucks’ now and then. But we also allowed Geralt, specifically, in these emotional moments, to have lengthier… I don’t want to call them speeches, but lengthier conversations with his comrades.” Hemsworth was also interested in exploring what Hissrich calls Geralt’s “dry wit.” He says: 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. It is purely the fact that he actually is able to be vulnerable with his friends and meet this chosen family that he’s able to lean on them and find the courage and find the strength… This idea of chosen family is what really pushes him forward and motivates him to go on. There’s chosen family, and there’s also monster hunting, massive fight sequences, and the fate of the Continent. Hissrich says, “Fantasy oftentimes, and The Witcher fell into this… It becomes very earnest. Everything is carried with the weight of the world. And personally, when I turn on the television at night after work to watch something, you do want to have moments of hope and optimism. You do want to have moments of beauty. It was so important to bring that back to the Witcher world.” Beauty? Optimism? Cheeky grins? You can see how this new Witcher plays out when season four debuts on Netflix on October 30th.[end-mark] The post <i>The Witcher</i> Showrunner on What Will (and Won’t) Change in Season 4 With Liam Hemsworth as the New Geralt appeared first on Reactor.