‘The Witcher’s Kim Bodnia Would Have Played Vesemir Differently if He Saw ‘Nightmare of the Wolf’

At long last, The Witcher has finally introduced us to Geralt’s mentor. But Vesemir is far more than just another avenue to explain our grumpy antihero. In Kim Bodnia‘s hands, he’s a force in and of itself, a powerful witcher who’s trapped between the horrors of his past and his hopes for the future.

Season 2 marks the first time Vesemir has appeared in The Witcher live-action series, but he’s been in Netflix’s universe before. Vesemir was the protagonist of Nightmare of the Wolf, August’s anime movie that explained what caused the legendary attack on Kaer Morhen. Though the two projects premiered around the same time, Bodnia wasn’t able to read Nightmare of the Wolf‘s script before he tackled his version of the wise witcher.

“We were shooting the season, and I was told that they wanted to create Nightmare of the Wolf when he was young,” Bodnia told Decider. “I didn’t know I had so much fun when I was young. I would have definitely played differently. How much fun did I have? Wow, I didn’t remember. But it was a beautiful cartoon. I love it. It was very good to see.”

The version of Vesemir who appears in Nightmare of the Wolf is very different from the one who grounds Geralt (Henry Cavill) in The Witcher Season 2. The standalone movie follows Vesemir during his smug early days as a witcher, a time when he thought he was next to immortal. After witnessing the slaughter of 23 of his witcher brothers and 40 young witchers in training, that cockiness has faded. The Vesemir we see in The Witcher Season 2 is far more subdued as he tries to restore the lost potions required to create witchers.

This season also sees Vesemir on his own journey. As the season progresses, he comes to realize that Ciri (Freya Allan) may be the key to restoring the witchers to their former greatness. Vesemir is torn between two conflicting emotions: a need to rebuild the School of the Wolf and a disgust toward the torture of children that goal requires.

“This actually impacts what’s going on later on in the season,” Bodnia said. “In a way, when you have this oldness, that people are around you, they have to feel peacefulness. And they have to look inside themselves and learn from that. Then suddenly, as you say, Vesemir has to take some solution because he can’t create more witchers and now we have the possibility to do it. That’s so complex. We definitely have scenes about that, and I’m still working on what’s happening there because it’s difficult to play that stuff because it’s hurt.”

This grappling between what’s best for the witchers and what he’s morally willing to do required Bodnia to fight alongside Henry Cavill in multiple scenes. “First of all, it’s always a big challenge to do scenes, fighting scenes, with Henry. He’s so good at it,” Bodnia said. “It’s so, so meaningful for him to do that stuff. So, for me, what was most important was not to disturb his work because he had a way of dancing around. It was quite nice to have a very good stunt team around me that could help me with that so I didn’t disturb his dancing. But he was incredible to do stunts with and fighting sequences. I love it.”

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