The Audition Room: The Witcher casting director on playing hard to get with Henry Cavill, Joey Batey playing the lute and the character impossible to find

The Audition Room: The Witcher casting director on playing hard to get with Henry Cavill, Joey Batey playing the lute and the character impossible to find

Sometimes you need a little bit of magic to spark a casting director’s interest and get you a role – and that was certainly the case with The Witcher.

But if you can nail that one game-changing audition, then the world is your oyster… and as you’re about to find out, going the extra mile is definitely worth doing to get a casting director’s attention.

To help you budding young stars out, we’re scoping out info from those on the inside of the industry with Metro.co.uk’s Audition Room.

Last time, it was The Politician’s cast talking about their campaigns to make it onto the series, but now we’re heading into the world of fantasy to see how The Witcher’s cast was magicked into existence.




Speaking to Sophie Holland, the casting director of the new Netflix series, we picked her brain on what she needed from the leading stars, the lengths actors went to to stand out…

… And also what it’s like playing hard to get with Henry Cavill.

The team initially ignored his pleas to play Geralt of Rivia (Picture: AP/Netflix)

Henry Cavill – Geralt Of Rivia

‘He is a huge fan of the world,’ Sophie told us. ‘He plays all the games, he’s read all the books, and he and Lauren chatted super early on. So early on, we didn’t have anything for him to read, she was like “I don’t have anything to kind of show you!”.’

‘We sort of talked about it and we thought it was important for us to see as many people who would fit the role as possible I thought there would be lots and lots of men between sort of 35 and 40 who would play it.

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‘The shock, I think, was that we saw hundreds, and some brilliant actors, just no one who had quite nailed it. Meanwhile, in the background, we’ve got Henry’s agent calling saying he loves the project, he wants to meet for it. How can we make this happen?

To be honest from the moment he opened his mouth we just knew. We just knew.

‘We’re entering a phase in casting where ‘offer only’ is what everybody’s pushing for, and that can be really soul-destroying for a production. Once you do that, once you make a commitment to the actor, without ever hearing them read for it, then you have no idea really what the range is, what their approach will be, what they’re like… but he really wanted to meet with us. So we flew to New York, myself, Lauren and Alik Sakharov, we met at the Netflix office there.

‘To be honest from the moment he opened his mouth we just knew. We just knew. Which seems crazy that we actually could’ve saved ourselves all that trouble. But I’m kind of glad we did go on the hunt for it, and realising what we couldn’t find, meant that when we found him we just knew he was absolutely the right fit. Which is weird, because this is 100% Superman like you’ve never seen him before.’

Freya was originally cast as Mirilka in episode one but impressed so much she got Ciri instead (Picture: AP/Netflix)

Freya Allen – Ciri



‘We saw Freya when we were looking for another character. She got cast as another character in episode one, a character called Mirilka.

‘Then we showed her to the team, and everybody kind of fell in love with her. Freya’s so smart in such a young person’s body. She feels millenial. So we pulled her in, and we’re still having trouble searching for Ciri, so we thought “shall we just try it?” and she read for it and she was perfect so we booked her for that instead.

‘It was quite a process, I mean, just the hundreds and hundreds of girls that we saw for that role, just trying to find somebody special. Maybe two girls out of the hundreds that we saw could’ve played that role, so we were chuffed when we saw her.’

Maybe two girls out of the hundreds that we saw could’ve played that role, so we were chuffed when we saw her.

‘To find a girl who was 16 and could convey in a really emotional way, the loss of her parents, the loss of her grandparents, being pushed out into this world that she doesn’t know and surviving on her own in a way that is completely alien to her,’ she told us. ‘Imagine being 16, and trying to show that? When some 35 year old actors would struggle, we knew she had to be special.

‘Thank goodness she walked into our room when she did. She’s brilliant.’

‘That was really tough,’ Sophie added. ‘We knew it was going to be an unknown [actor], and we knew she was going to be super young, and we knew the chances were we were going to find, we were going to have to look really hard.


‘When you’re dealing with younger children, essentially, finding someone who’s genuinely talented is quite a difficult task. So we had to look in, not just places like the theatre, but also schools and youth clubs and theatre groups.

‘We’re really lucky we found her! I don’t know what we would’ve done if we hadn’t.’

Anya was the first person cast before anyone else on the show – even Henry (Picture: Getty/Netflix)

Anya Chalotra – Yennefer

‘This was easy,’ Sophie told us. ‘I had met Anya on her first-ever professional audition for another project. I just knew immediately that we would work together.’

‘In the initial conversation when we were talking about our top 10 girls, Anya was on it but she was completely unknown. She’d not done anything and I wondered how I was gonna sell it. I didn’t need to sell it. That was the easiest find.

When we were talking about our top 10 girls [for Yennefer] Anya was on it. She was cast before anyone else.

‘She was cast before anyone else. If you imagine casting sort of secondary lead before you’ve even found Geralt. They couldn’t chemistry read together. We’d already booked her.

‘We had to find a guy who would just [fit]. I just knew. She’s gonna be the one I think everybody’s gonna watch that series and feel literally like a star is born. She’s unbelievably in touch with her emotions, she’s beautiful but it’s like she doesn’t know it.

‘She has a kind of natural beauty. We didn’t have to search hard for her which feels wild considering the pressure. She is wonderful.’

Joey turned up to the audition dressed up as Jaskier and played the lute (Picture: Getty/Netflix)

Joey Batey – Jaskier

In the cast of Joey’s audition, it was a case of going the extra mile that ensured Sophie there was no one else to play the dashing comical Bard… which was lucky considering it was a last minute audition.


‘This was the worst character to cast in the entire series. To find somebody… it was really hard. We had to find somebody who’s gorgeous, sexy, charming, can play the lute… and we just couldn’t.

‘We’d find someone that was almost, like, it was close but not quite there. We were split down the middle with some amazing people. I thought to myself, “we are not going to find this character, we’re just going to have to settle for second best”. We did one last push for actors and his agent said you’ve got to meet Joey Batey.

Joey dressed up in full costume to audition as fan favourite Jaskier (Picture: ATARI)

‘We gave him 24 hours and in that time he’d learned off-by-heart two scenes, he’d borrowed a lute… I mean, where on earth do you borrow a lute from in 2018?! That’s impossible! He’d learned a song, he’d set it to music, and he came in dressed as the character.

‘If ever there was an actor who deserved a role more… Like, he was, he was incredible. I said to him, rather inappropriately, “I could leap across this room and hug you!” He opened his mouth, and there was Jaskier.

Where on earth do you borrow a lute from in 2018?!… I think out of them all, in a way, I’m most proud of Joey Batey.

‘He’s funny. He sings beautifully, he’s so genuinely charming, he’s living his best life. He’s living his best life. That’s probably our proudest moment in casting, that character, because I really thought at one point, we saw hundreds and I really thought we can’t find him. Then he came in, and there he was, fully formed right in front of us.

‘He could play the lute, sing like a dream, can act and Jaskier could be a pantomime character, but he can act. He can make you laugh and then take you to the depths and bring tears to your eyes, with his honesty, his humour. I think out of them all in a way, I’m most proud of Joey Batey.’

Eamon held a ruler as a sword to his throat during the intense audition process (Picture: Getty/Netflix)

Eamon Farren – Cahir

‘We’re going to see his story grow a lot in season 2, where he’s more a presence in season one.

‘His audition was really, like, as you see, he has this amazing characterful face. He did this thing in the audition I remember where, in the recall with the director we held this ruler to his throat and pretended it was a sword.

We held this ruler to his throat and pretended it was a sword… he held it to his throat and was basically like, “kill me now”.

‘He just grabbed hold of it with his hand and held it to his throat and was basically like, “kill me now”. He was trying to show all these layers underneath the character. I think that’s what he does beautifully. He’s so dark, exotic and beautiful to watch. He’s so focused when he’s performing, he’s electric.’

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‘You wanted Cahir to be super smart and to be able to embody this kind of darkness,’ she added. ‘And actually finding darkness in actors is quite a difficult thing, because actors want to please. They want to play to the crowd. So completely different to someone like Jaskier, who you want to kind of play it up.

‘I think the way Eamonn acts is really so intense, so focused and he goes completely with his instincts which is kind of this amazing.’

The Witcher is available now on Netflix.

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