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Henry Cavill ignored expert input and risked permanent eye damage to play the role of Geralt in The Witcher
Henry Cavill wanted the role of Geralt in a big way, and when he landed it, there was nothing he wouldn't do to give his all to the role. That includes risking permanent injury to part of his body. In an interview with Metro, Cavill talks about the trouble he had with his eyes during filming due to special contacts.
"I was only allowed to keep them in for three hours at a time, well I 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. 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. My eye-technician was always pushing me to say like, 'No, I don’t care. I don’t care what you need to shoot, take, take the bloody contacts out, because you will start to go blind after a while'.
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’d say, no, it’s alright we can shoot couple more hours will be fine. And she said, we won’t be fine. You’ve got to take them out now."
There’s lot of volcanic rock in the Canary Island, and when it picks up a lot and it’s all this stuff, which becomes very, very light and dusty. It got in behind the contacts, so my eyes ended up being scratched. I didn’t realise it was scratching so we went back to Budapest after our trip to Canary Islands. But it got to the point where I couldn’t really keep my eyes open, my eyes were watering, had to try and wash everything out. Very, very stingy, very painful, but I just thought it’s just because I’m tired and not getting much sleep and I just need to muscle through it.
It got to the point where my technician found me hiding in the shadows of my eyes closed because it was was very bright. 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.' So the contacts, as cool as they were, they did come with some challenges."