Dispelling all fans’ previous doubts, Henry Cavill excellently portrayed the monster hunter Geralt in The Witcher , which just aired on Netflix on December 20, 2019. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this series achieved its current resounding success largely thanks to the British actor’s ability to play the role perfectly.
Henry loved The Witcher so much that he didn’t use any stuntmen, taking on all the action scenes himself. From the thrilling sword fights at high speed, to the scenes of rolling with monsters, Henry performed them all well.
However, because of his enthusiasm and dedication to this role, Henry’s health has encountered many problems. Tired and exhausted from too much physical activity, the actor also faced the risk of destroying his eyes because of wearing contact lenses for too long a time.
In order for Geralt to have these super impressive eyes, Henry had to continuously wear contact lenses for a long time and almost destroyed his eyes.
Sharing with Metro.co.uk, Henry explained that Geralt’s yellow eyes (dark black when taking enhancement pills) are because he uses contact lenses, not through any special techniques. If you wear these glasses for a short time, there is no problem. But perhaps out of subjectiveness, Henry almost used them throughout the long filming process, only taking them off when he got home.
The actor said: “ Actually, I should only wear contact lenses for about 3 hours, then take them off to let my eyes rest for a while before using them again. I’m not worried about dry eyes, but the problem is that the eyes are the only part of the human body that receives oxygen directly from the air, instead of from the blood. So you seal them up (with contact lenses) which means they won’t be able to circulate air. If this condition persists, it will cause certain damage to your eyes .
“ My eye specialist always grumbles: “I don’t care what your character is like, what your scenes are like. But you must take off those contact lenses immediately if you don’t want to be permanently blind.” At first I thought she was just overdoing it, so I refused, believing that it would be okay if I just filmed for a few more hours. However, she still insisted that I take them off as much as possible .”
Instead of wearing contact lenses for three hours, Henry wore them all day during filming, despite his doctor’s advice.
Besides contact lenses, Henry’s eyes also suffered many negative influences from the filming environment, especially in Canary Island, Spain. He said: “ This island is full of volcanic rocks, causing a lot of dust in the air, especially on windy days. This type of dust is both thin and light, so it easily gets inside my contact lenses and gets stuck there, causing scratches on my eyes without me even realizing it .”
“ After returning to Budapest (Hungary), I fell into a state where I could not open my eyes, tears kept flowing non-stop. Right after that, I had to use clean water to wash all the dirt out. The pain was extremely painful, as if someone was sticking a needle in your eye. However, I still stubbornly thought that it was probably just because my body was tired after many days of continuous filming and that it was no big deal .”
“ However, things were so bad that I constantly had to close my eyes tightly, because every time I opened them, I felt glare from the surrounding environment. I told my vision specialist that I was fine, just needed to help soothe my eyes before the next scene. But she forced me to take off my contact lenses immediately, because my condition would become extremely serious, possibly leading to permanent blindness if this continued .”
Because of wearing contact lenses for too long and encountering dust, Henry was unable to open his eyes.
Luckily, Henry finally listened to the doctor and let his eyes rest a bit before filming again. He also humorously joked: “ On screen, Geralt looks cool, but actually it’s because he wears contact lenses. And it is not pleasant at all .”
