Fans Give Liam Hemsworth a Bold New Nickname in The Witcher Season 4 After Henry Cavill's Geralt

Netflix swapped out Henry Cavill for Liam Hemsworth as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher Season 4, and the reaction has been... loud. If you have whiplash from the transition, you are not alone. Here is what is actually changing on screen, what the showrunner says, and what we really know (and do not) about why Cavill walked.

The fan reaction: not pretty

Since the official Season 4 trailer dropped, a chunk of the audience still is not buying Hemsworth as the White Wolf. On Oct 28, 2025, one X user declared 'Geralt is dead. Now its Liamralt Hemswanker' and, yeah, pretty brutal. That sentiment is not isolated: plenty of fans insist Cavill was born to play the part and that anyone else is a downgrade, full stop.

So what is Liam actually doing with Geralt?

Hemsworth is not doing a Cavill impression. Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich says they leaned into a different shade of Geralt this year, and she is openly enthusiastic about what Hemsworth brings.

'Geralt is a little funnier this season. He's a little more dry. He's also a lot more emotional. He's going through a lot of different things than we've seen in the past. And I think Liam was really able to access these sort of vulnerable levels in his performance that we just hadn't had the opportunity to see before.'

• Funnier with a drier bite
• More emotional and exposed
• Still Geralt, but less locked-down than Cavill's famously stoic take

That lines up with what we see in the trailer: a Geralt who actually reacts, cracks a grim joke here and there, and lets the armor slip. Whether that is your flavor of Witcher is going to be personal taste, but it is intentional, not accidental recasting drift.

Why Cavill left (or what we actually know)

Henry Cavill has not given a definitive reason. Hissrich has said the exit was not a snap decision; the conversation had been happening for a while. According to her, he had other roles he wanted to focus on, and nobody wanted to force him to stay, so it wound up a mutually agreeable split.

Now, context: The Witcher adapts Andrzej Sapkowski's books and has been a lightning rod for years because of its creative liberties. Fans have hammered the show for drifting from the source material since Season 1. Given Cavill's well-documented love of fantasy lore and the books, a lot of people assume that friction played into his exit. That is a popular theory, but it is still a theory. Until Cavill spells it out, it is speculation.

Release details

The Witcher Season 4 hits Netflix on October 30 at 1:00 AM Pacific / 4:00 AM Eastern.