Liam Hemsworth is taking over the role of Geralt in “The Witcher” season 4, and he has a lot to live up to. Henry Cavill famously lobbied for the role prior to the show’s debut, out of an abundance of love for the source material — Andrzej Sapkowski’s book series. Since being cast, he’s devoted himself to portraying the White Wolf as faithfully as possible, right down to performing many of the action scenes himself.
What’s surprising is that Cavill managed to injure himself not by slaying any horrific monsters or performing some outlandish stunt, but during a scene where he was running through some woods while shooting season 2 of “The Witcher.” In fact, the actor almost managed to rip his hamstring away from the bone. Back in December of 2020, Cavill was filming an episode of the show and, as he told The Hollywood Reporter, suffered a “very, very bad” hamstring tear. As showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich recalled, “I remember Henry stopping up short and all of us going, ‘Did he trip? Was there a rock?’ I went to his trailer and he said he was in a great amount of pain.” Cavill added, “I was very lucky that it wasn’t a complete detachment of the hamstring.”
The “Man of Steel” star revealed more about his injury in a 2021 Instagram video where he showed an MRI of his leg that demonstrated the seriousness of the issue. He explained, “My physiotherapist told me that if the tear was any more severe, it would have been a rupture. That means that the tendon and the muscle leave the bone, which would be really rather nasty.”