In Season 2 of The Witcher, Jaskier (Joey Batey) made a couple of new friends by way of mice. Naming one Gordon, Jaskier was shown singing up a fine tune with them as he was held in a prison cell.
Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) showed up to rescue the bard as well as ask for his help. Jaskier would not leave before saying goodbye to his friends.
“What? I made new friends. Get over it,” Jaskier says when Geralt looks exasperated over the adieu.
However, the actor has now revealed a mousey mishap that occurred on set while filming this scene.
Working with animals does not always go to plan
There is an old saying in Hollywood — never work with kids or animals. And, in Joey Batey’s case, this turned out to be true.
During the filming of the jail scene, Jaskier obviously had to get up close and personal with the mice on set. While not particularly concerned about this, Batey noted to Digital Spy that things did go awry at one point when one of the mice got stuck in his chest hair.
“There were some mice involved,” Batey said.
“At one point, there was a mouse stuck in my chest hair. Everyone had to freeze, and they were like, ‘Joey, there’s a mouse in your chest hair.'”
According to Batey, the mouse that got stuck in his chest hair was the aforementioned Gordon, and he frolicked freely across his chest before being rescued.
Jaskier managed to show off that chest hair later in the episode when he stopped to take a much-needed wash. It was also the point in Season 2 of The Witcher that Geralt realized Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) was in league with the Deathless Mother, also known as Voleth Meir (Ania Marson).
To make matters worse, Jaskier not only got attacked by mice while filming Season 2 of The Witcher but there was also a torture scene that the actor found difficult to film.
Joey Batey also speaks out about working through a pandemic
Along with discussing the incident with the mouse, Batey also spoke out about filming Season 2 of The Witcher during the global coronavirus pandemic.
“We were all socially distanced, and isolating, and in full PPE half the time. And we’re such a big family, it felt really odd coming back, and not being able to hug your colleagues and your friends,” Batey revealed.
COVID-19 has led to many changes while on set and filming for various TV shows and movies.
Along with the social distancing and testing requirements, filming had to be temporarily shut down on Season 2 when Game of Thrones star Kristofer Hivju contracted the virus. He portrayed Nivellen in Episode 1 of the second season of The Witcher.
Season 2 of The Witcher is currently available to stream on Netflix.