Not a fan of this. I saw it on twitter and.... he looks like he's tripping and has to take a monster shit at the same time.

The problem right now isn't Cavill, it's how clean he looks. He's supposed to be a Witcher going toe-to-toe with monsters in muck and grime, fighting for a couple orens. Witchers are not pretty boys, they don't have the money for perms. Muss up the hair a bit, make the outfit look like it has been worn before. That is the issue I see right now.

Not grizzled enough. Or at all. Where's the stubble?

Netflix should take some lessons from HBO and Game of Thrones on how to do long white hair properly.

To me looks way too.....how should I put it?....clean? friendly? fresh out of the shrinkwrap?
Even if they want to depict a younger version of Gerald lets say directly after becoming a witcher, he still underwent a hellish training and mutations which only a small percentage survives something like that leaves traces.
Not to metion that in the books he was described as comparebly ugly (not sure about the exact terms which were used in the english version I only read the german translation), which Is why I wasn't exactly happy with the TW2 and TW3 Gerald either but this is even worse in that regard.

Is this Legolas?

meh, hes just a shade too pretty and that wig needs some serious help. wish they had gotten a beefier age appropriate man.

This got me picturing Bruce Campbell with Cavill's terrible wig for some reason.

Hah hah, had no idea such a thing exists -- thanks for the laugh! There's a porn version of just about anything, though, especially anything popular, so it's not really surprising.

The weird thing is, the Witcher franchise already has quite a bit of sexual content, so I guess it's not much of a "parody".

Exactly. If they put him through some rough and tumble stuff (and he adds some good acting) he`ll look the part. You`ll all change your minds.

If by "age appropriate" you mean looking like he did in Witcher 3, his sudden aging throughout the games makes no sense at all. The age is fine. As for the beefiness, Geralt in the books is described as thin but muscular - I'd say Cavill is already too beefy.

I feel like I need to remind people that the show will be based on the books - not on the games, which are essentially fan fiction and took a lot of liberties with the story and characters. Sorry for being such a fanboy. :-P

I'd put that down to the fact the games all look hugely different graphics and aesthetic wise. Rather than literal aging.

It's the paleness, the white hair, and the "i'm tired of this shit" attitude they wrote him with probably.

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The people going on about that ignore that unless you're doing a show of him riding on a horse to somewhere for multiple seasons anyone old enough to meet their skewed perception probably isn't willing or fit enough for a active role. Depending on the amount of action, even with stunt doubles actors can get the shit kicked out of them.

Something just occurred to me: People here have been defending the choice of actor and his portrayal of the character because the series is ( apparently ) not based on the games, or at least not the events of the third game -- But does that even make sense? Who exactly is the target audience for this new series? Isn't it primarily for the fans of the games? I dare say it wouldn't exist without the immense success of the video game adaptions, in particular Witcher 3. I know the books already had a certain fanbase, but mostly in Poland/ Europe, and as far as I know this is a US production. Besides, book enthusiasts pretty much universally prefer the original novels and rarely approve of TV series or movie adaptions. So again, can they afford not to base their character designs on Witcher 3? Or for that matter, do they even have any rights to the designs of the Witcher games, or are they intentionally avoiding obvious similarities to prevent legal issues, as they only have a deal with the novel author/ publisher and not CDP(R)?