‘The Witcher’ Video Shows Off Fight Scenes Everyone Is Talking About

Only a few weeks remain before “The Witcher” releases on Netflix and anticipation grows ever stronger, especially following the praise the show has already received thus far.

To promote its forthcoming release, “The Witcher” star Henry Cavill appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Wednesday night and showcased a 24-second snippet of the upcoming fantasy series. Breathing truth into the social media acclaim, the short segment displays Cavill’s Geralt in an action sequence, wherein he seemingly saves Duny (Bart Edwards) from immediate execution.

“For me, it’s really important that the character exists within the action, as well,” Cavill explained to Kimmel. “It’s really important that the story and character travel through all of those things.”

While extremely short, the tease does coincide with bits of scenes from previous trailers, showcasing a large-scale sword battle following a banquet. Queen Calanthe (Jodhi May) screams to high heaven in ordering the immediate deaths of both Duny and the Witcher, Geralt of Riva, and the whole hall erupts into a chaotic sword battle.

When asked if he uses a stunt man, Cavill explained: “I do my best not to…On this, I didn’t use a stunt man at all.”

The fight scene is taken right out of the Andrzej Sapkowski’s “The Witcher” books, indicating that few changes have been made. In the books, the fight scene is mirrored by Geralt’s visit to Cintra at the behest of Queen Calanthe to oversee the wedding of Pavetta, mother of Princess Ciri. Pavetta, however, is in love with a cursed man, Duny, who bears the resemblance of a hedgehog, which leads Calanthe into ordering his demise and makes Geralt reluctantly assist in Pavetta and Duny's escape.

While thus far the show may appear to follow the books closely, small differences could be made as the show goes on.

On discussing the books, Cavill describes how his knowledge of the series stemmed first from the video games.

“I didn’t read the books as a kid,” he clarified. “Played [‘The Witcher 3’] to the death…I met the showrunner and that’s when I learned they were books. Read the books and realized I was missing out on the whole world and stuff because I’ve been into the fantasy genre since I was a kid.”

Netflix’s “The Witcher” debuts on Dec. 20.