Behind slot number 19 are some questions to the actor Joey Batey, who plays the bard Jaskier in “The Witcher”. After the first season, the song “Toss a Coint to Your Witcher” became a huge success and the character Jaskier became one of the most popular “The Witcher” characters alongside Geralt. Where their “Sherk and the Donkey” friendship with each other went straight through the box and into the hearts of the viewers.
In the new season, Jaskier has to do considerably more on his own – with a more serious and darker role. But he is also involved in one of the new season’s funniest scenes, where the creators of the series take the opportunity to let some of the criticism of the first season seep into a scene where it will be Jaskier who will be held responsible for everything that was “wrong” last time . Confusing timelines, predictable dragons and everything. Batey gives us here a long description of what it was like to record the special scene.
There’s a really funny scene when Jaskier is crocheted by a “fan”, who lists things he thought were bad with the songs from the first season … but which is of course some kind of meta-comment where this guard throws himself out all the stuff that Lauren Schmidt [the creator of the series] got from angry twitterers after the first season. Was everything you said in it written down in the script or did you have to come up with your own tips on “criticism” and insults to throw into the dialogue?
– Lol! I’ve always praised Lauren for her way of taking the bull by the horns, so to speak. She always goes straight to the point with everyone she works with, but with honesty and kindness as a basis. She also has a very extensive contact with the fans, outside the actual creation of the series. She is very present on Twitter and likes to listen to people’s opinions and uses social media – if it is even possible to say this – in the right way. By opening up dialogues and discussing what emerges.
– When it comes to this particular scene, I’m absolutely sure she had a lot of fun while she was writing it. I did invent a bit of it during the day when we recorded it later … and if I remember correctly, we recorded the scene at 04.00 in the morning! Al, who plays the guard, is by the way a fantastically nice and talented actor who has mostly stuck to the theater stage before, but we agreed very well between the shots.
