Henry Cavill's Colored Contacts For The Witcher Almost Blinded Him

Henry Cavill's tenure as Geralt of Rivia is almost at and end. With season 3 of "The Witcher," the leading man will bow out after receiving what showrunner Lauren Hissric claims will be a "heroic sendoff," clearing the way for Liam Hemsworth to take on the starring role for season 4.

The details surrounding Cavill's departure are somewhat unclear, as anyone who followed his and Dwayne Johnson's bizarre attempts to maintain their positions within the now-defunct DCEU will know. But whatever the reason, you can't fault Cavill's turn as the White Wolf thus far. His take on the magical monster hunter stayed true to Andrzej Sapkowski's "Witcher" book series while also introducing audiences unfamiliar with the novels to a captivatingly taciturn on-screen anti-hero.

In other words, Cavill is bowing out after what looks to be three solid seasons, if the season 3 trailer is anything to go by. And in order to deliver those three seasons of Geralt's travails across the Continent, it seems the leading man had to undergo some hardships of his own. In fact, at one point he risked potentially going blind.

As we learned back in "The Witcher" season 2, there are other Witchers than Geralt, but they're not very good at Witchering. Also, they don't have Geralt's distinctive look. Whereas you may have initially thought the White Wolf's appearance was representative of Witchers as a whole, it was revealed in the second season that his golden eyes and white hair are the result of being pushed further than any other child during the Trial of the Grasses — painful experiments carried out on children to transform them into the mutated monster hunters we know as Witchers. All jolly stuff.

Unfortunately, not every kid survives those experiments. But in Geralt's case, not only did he make it through, he seemed relatively unphased by the Trial of the Grasses, prompting further experiments which turned his hair that unmistakable white and his eyes gold.

And while, for Cavill, wearing gold contacts isn't quite as punishing an experience as the Trial of the Grasses, it seems it's not without its own risks. Speaking to Metro, the actor recalled how he had some serious issues with the contacts and came very close to permanently damaging his eyesight. He explained:

"I was only allowed to keep them in for three hours at a time, well I was supposed to only keep them in three hours at a time. Drying out isn't the problem, it's that part of your eye, it's the only part of your body that receives oxygen from the air rather than blood,' he said. 'And so if you're covering it up, you're not getting any oxygen to it, and over a long period of time, you will do damage to your eyes. It's just not worth it."

Unfortunately, Cavill didn't adhere to any of that ...

In a very Geralt-esque show of nonchalance, Henry Cavill disregarded all medical advice, prompting his eye technician to warn him about the possibly debilitating consequences. As the actor recalled it, the technician told him to "take the bloody contacts out, because you will start to go blind after a while.'"

He continued:

"I was sure she was probably selling a slightly more dramatic version of the truth, because I do tend to be a bit stubborn like that. And I'll say, 'no, it's alright we can shoot, a couple more hours will be fine.' And she said, 'we won't be fine. You've got to take them out now.'"

Once again, Cavill disregarded that advice. But while filming "The Witcher" in the Canary Islands, wouldn't you believe he started to run into problems? According to the "Man of Steel" star, as filming went on, dust from the location's volcanic rocks was picked up by the wind and got trapped behind his contacts, scratching his eyes. Chalking it up to being tired, Cavill persevered until his eye technician found him "hiding in the shadows with [his] eyes closed because it was very bright." He added:

"She said 'take them out.' And I said, 'No, No, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Just give me some things to dab my eyes before a scene will be good.' She put her foot down and said, 'No, I'm stopping shooting until you take them out.'"

All of which probably prevented Cavill from suffering permanent damage to his vision. Now, with Liam Hemsworth set to take over the lead role for "The Witcher" season 4, whatever Cavill's legacy as Geralt becomes, you can't say he didn't suffer for his craft.