Jaskier (Joey Batey) is a beloved character in both seasons of The Witcher. The delightful bard belted out a banger of tune in Season 1 that became what appeared to be the year’s biggest earworm.
Then, Season 2 saw another chart-topper for Jaskier, though, it was a darker, more grungy song titled Burn Butcher, Burn told of just how much out of grace Geralt (Henry Cavill) has fallen with the bard since Season 1.
When the pair finally met up, though, it appeared that Jaskier was quick to forgive the witcher and the pair continued on with their normal banter.
However, that was not the end of Jaskier’s ordeal in Season 2.
Jaskier was tortured by Rience
As the latest instalment of The Witcher played out, Jaskier was actually captured by Rience (Chris Fulton), a fire mage, and tortured.
Rience did this in order to gain information regarding both Geralt and his Law of Surprise adoptive daughter, Ciri (Freya Allan). Most importantly, Rience was after Ciri directly and was hired on behalf of Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu), according to HitC.
With Jaskier’s ties to Geralt, though, he became a prime target once it was known that Ciri and Geralt had paired up.
Joey Batey reveals how tough the torture scenes were
While the torture inflicted on Jaskier was certainly hard for fans to watch, according to the actor, it was also hard to film for a variety of reasons — including the weather.
“It was really, really hard. A lot of the scenes that you see that look indoors are actually outdoors,” Joey Batey revealed to Digital Spy.
“So it was freezing cold that day, in the middle of winter. You do have to go into a bit of a dark place for a very, very long time to get through that.”
Weather aside, Batey also found the scenes particularly draining.
“I’m literally tied to this chair for about 12 hours, because I’m doing it all, and putting it all back on again. It’s really, really… It can be really draining, and you do go to bed that night with a lot of stuff floating around your head. You’ve got to drum up some really dark stuff in your head in order to go to those sort of places.”
Thankfully, he was surrounded by a supportive cast and crew. Batey pointed out that the actor who played Rience was a particularly “sensitive actor” when it came to assessing what was needed on set.
Season 2 of The Witcher is currently available to stream on Netflix.