While Henry Cavill may be the most famous actor to have played Geralt of Rivia, he's not the first name many will think of when discussing The Witcher. Within the gaming community, Doug Cockle, the voice of Geralt in CD Projekt Red's series of critically acclaimed RPGs, is considered the original and ultimate white wolf. Now, the paths of Cavill and Cockle's Geralts have converged, with Cockle lending his distinctive voice to Netflix's animated movie, The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep.
In this new venture, Cockle does not play the same version of Geralt from the games. Importantly, he was not asked to alter his performance to mimic Henry Cavill or Liam Hemsworth, who will replace Cavill as Geralt in the upcoming live-action series. This creative choice allowed Cockle to employ the same technique that crafted the iconic, gravelly tones of his Geralt. Fans will recognize and appreciate the familiar voice they've come to love over the past two decades.
Cockle developed this signature voice back in 2005 while recording for the first Witcher video game. He recalls, "The thing I found most challenging about recording Witcher 1 was actually the voice itself. When I first started recording the game, Geralt’s voice was very, very far down in my register. It was something I had to push towards." At that time, there was little guidance on how long voice actors should spend in a single session, leading Cockle to record for eight or nine hours a day, which left his throat feeling strained. The challenge persisted during The Witcher 2, but his vocal cords eventually adapted and strengthened, much like an athlete conditioning their muscles.
A significant turning point came during the development of the second game when English translations of the books became available. "The books started to come out in English while I was recording Witcher 2," Cockle explains. "Before that, it was the developers from CD Projekt Red who taught me everything I needed to know about Geralt. So as soon as The Last Wish came out in English, I was down at the bookstore buying it, and I tore through it. And I understood things about Geralt just from reading that one book that I didn't understand at all before."
He recalls the developers' initial guidance: "The developers kept saying, ‘He's emotionless.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, I get it, I get it, but I'm an actor. I want to play with emotions.’ But I better understood the book why they were pushing for as flat as possible of an emotional life for him."
Doug Cockle's Geralt appears alongside Joey Batey's Jaskier and other members of the Netflix cast. | Image credit: Netflix
Cockle fell in love with the books, admiring author Andrzej Sapkowski's writing. Having grown up with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, he quickly connected with this new fantasy universe. Of all Sapkowski’s novels, he most fondly remembers Season of Storms, a story he’d love to voice should Netflix need Geralt again. "It's one of those stories that when I read it, I was like, ‘Oh, this is horrible. This is awful.’ But it's thrilling at the same time," he says. "There's some really graphic fight scenes that Sapkowski gives to us, and I think that would be a really fun story to turn into an anime or a TV episode."
Currently, fans can experience Cockle's Geralt in Sirens of the Deep, Netflix's latest animated Witcher adventure. Based on the short story A Little Sacrifice from the Sword of Destiny collection, it offers a dark and twisted take on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. After a mermaid and a human prince fall in love, Geralt becomes entangled in a conflict between two distinct kingdoms. While the story includes intense action and political drama, Cockle particularly enjoys the lighter moments, such as a humorous campfire conversation between Geralt and Jaskier. These scenes highlight Geralt's softer side, often overlooked in his portrayal as a monster hunter.
"Part of liking acting is liking all those different aspects of a character's personality and the different choices that could be made and how they might approach those choices," Cockle explains. "I enjoy the gravitas of Geralt when he's all serious and mopey and whatever, but I do also like those moments when he's trying to be light. When he's trying to crack a joke and it just doesn't go very well for him most of the time because he's just not funny."
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep Geeked Week 2024 Teaser Stills
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While much of Cockle's work on Sirens of the Deep involved using his familiar voice, the project presented a unique challenge: learning to speak in a fictional mermaid language. "I found doing this really difficult," he admits. "I got phonetic spellings of the words and things so I could get familiar with it and hopefully be okay on the day. And then I got in front of the mic and… it wasn't like performance anxiety or anything like that, it's just that it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."
Cockle's return to the video game world in The Witcher 4, revealed at The Game Awards last year, should be less daunting. Returning to his original version of Geralt will feel like slipping into a comfortable pair of slippers. This time, Geralt will be a supporting character, with Ciri, his adoptive daughter, taking the lead role.
Cockle remains tight-lipped about The Witcher 4, claiming to know only as much as the public. However, he is eager to see how CDPR's next chapter unfolds and believes it's already heading in the right direction. "I think it's a really good move," he says of the shift in perspective from Geralt to Ciri. "I mean, I always thought that continuing the saga, but shifting to Ciri would be a really, really interesting move for all kinds of reasons, but mostly because of things that happen in the books, which I don't want to give away because people, I want people to go read. So yeah, I think it's really exciting. I can't wait. I can't wait to see what they've done."
To learn more about CD Projekt Red's plans, check out our in-depth interview with the creators of The Witcher 4. And to see more of Doug Cockle, watch The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep on Netflix, or follow him on Instagram, Cameo, and X.
