Stories from the set

For one of the scenes in the 7th episode of season 2, the team used 500 live and 2,000 artificial cockroaches. Four specialists monitored the real insects, recounting the cockroaches twice a day.

When Henry Cavill first heard about the future filming of the series, he began pestering his agents to arrange a meeting for him with Netflix officials. Eventually the meeting was arranged, but the series creator Lauren Schmidt Hissrich initially rejected Cavill. She subsequently auditioned 207 actors for the role of Geralt, but none were suitable. As she wrote the script, she kept hearing Cavill's voice delivering Geralt's lines. In the end, she arranged another meeting with the actor and immediately realized she had found what she was looking for.

Preparing for the role of Geralt, Henry Cavill worked extensively with a sword and built muscle mass.

According to producer and showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, Henry Cavill got into the role so well, so to speak, that he practically didn't need to read the lines written for his character.

Henry Cavill performed all his own stunts.

In the winter of 2020, while filming the second season of the series, Henry Cavill tore his hamstring while running. Despite the acute pain, the actor did not break the filming schedule. He treated the injury early in the morning so that he would already be on set by 7:00.

In the second season, Geralt carries two swords with him: a silver one and a meteorite one. The creators went through 25 design options for the latter before settling on the final one. They made 15 rubber copies of each sword for the battle scenes.

The team came up with a unique design for many types of elven weapons. For example, the weapons department created 12 original weapon designs and 150 unique items just for the elves in the background cast.

Composer Joseph Trapanese wrote three versions of a new song for Jaskier: a melancholy one, an angry one, and a narrative one that told a certain story. He and actor Joey Batey ultimately chose the angry composition for the series and called it between themselves "Burn, Witcher, Burn."

Costume designer Lucinda Wright was inspired by the hat of Puss in Boots from the animated film "Shrek 2" while working on Jaskier's new headwear for the second season of the series.