The Witcher Season Two is out now and we can finally catch up with the characters we know and love. Producing a television show is an immense undertaking that takes hundreds of people and thousands of hours of work. Sometimes what you don’t see on screen can be the most interesting. (Slight spoilers ahead) Here are ten behind-the-scene facts about the second season:
Geralt of Rivia has two swords this season: one silver and the other meteorite. In reality, the armoury department had 25 different versions of the sword. For the fight scenes, 15 rubber copies of each sword were made.
All of the elven weapons utilize nature imagery and design — axes with dragon and horse heads, swords and daggers with serpents, bows with little salamanders. For the background elves alone, the armoury department created 12 original weapon designs and made 150 items.
The contact lenses used in THE WITCHER are precisely measured and cut to each individual actor’s eye shape and size. Every lens was handpainted in America.
Actor Agnes Born did her own body movement and contortion training for the role of Vereena. When the bruxa’s head spins around, this was shot practically and with no help from visual effects. Agnes twisted her head in one direction before a mold of her back was fixed to her chest, giving the illusion she turned her head 360 degrees.
Graham McTavish plays the character Sigismund Dijkstra this season, and also voices the character Deglan, Vesemir’s mentor, in the anime movie THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE OF THE WOLF.
To create the exterior of Kaer Morhen, the VFX team used a process called photogrammetry. They took thousands of pictures of two environments — a mountain called Sgùrr on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, and a second location in Iceland — to create a computer-generation 3D model.
Yarpen’s distinctive hammer showing two fingers has a backstory created by the armoury department. In their story, the hand belonged to a Nilfgaardian sentry who had a disagreement with Yarpen, so Yarpen cut his hand off and had it cast in bronze with the two fingers sticking up.
Production used 500 live cockroaches for the scene in Voleth Meir’s hut, plus 2,000 fake ones to visually bulk up the numbers. The live roaches had four animal wranglers who had to count each one out in the morning and back in the evening to make sure none had scurried away.
In memory of the thirteen mages who fell at Sodden, Tissaia carves their names into a marble plaque at Aretuza in Episode 203. Most of the names came from the original books. However, there were four mages not accounted for, so the art department added slightly altered versions names for showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, executive producer Tomek Bagiński, writer Haily Hall, and associate producer Tera Vale Ragan.
In the center of Kaer Morhen’s Great Hall stands the Medallion Tree, a memorial where the wolf medallions of fallen Witchers glitter in remembrance. Hidden among the many medallions is one very specific medallion that eagle-eyed fans should keep an eye out for.
What fact did you find most interesting? Let us know in the comments below or in our forums!
