When it was announced that Henry Cavill had parted ways with The Witcher, we assumed he must have decided to leave the role of Geralt behind after the opportunity to return as Superman presented itself. However, a new rumor doing the rounds online points to a very different - and far more troubling - reason for the actor's departure.
According to gossip account Deuxmoi - who is often, but not always accurate - Cavill was actually fired from the Netflix show after repeatedly being cautioned about his "toxic, gamer-bro" like behaviour. It's said that Cavill grew increasingly difficult to work with, especially to female members of the crew. There were no complaints of a sexual nature, but his language was reportedly toxic and disrespectful all the same.
Apparently, “someone on the show” compared Cavill’s alleged gamer bro radicalization to “watching someone get brainwashed by QAnon.”
It seems the final straw came when he began to override showrunner Lauren Hissrich and "get changes made last minute across the board without her knowledge."
“Eventually top brass at Netflix was tired of him costing them money with delays [and] HR investigations. The showrunner was asked to construct a potential exit for him. Netflix reached out to him personally, and he was given one final warning, and violated that warning with an email he sent to the entire writing staff, right after that meeting. That was it.”
How much stock should we put in this? Well, Hissrich has chosen her words very carefully when quizzed about Cavill's departure, suggesting there's more to the story that she can't discuss just yet, and Cavill has made some... questionable comments about women in the past. Even so, it's best not to take any of this at face value until we hear from those directly involved.
You can check out a transcript of the Deuxmoi podcast below.