The Witcher’s Doug Cockle on Becoming Netflix’s Latest Geralt

ign.com:

While Henry Cavill may be the most famous actor to have played Geralt of Rivia, he’s not the first name many will think of when discussing The Witcher. Certainly amongst the gaming community, Doug Cockle — the voice of Geralt in CD Projekt Red’s series of critically acclaimed RPGs — is considered the original and ultimate white wolf. But the paths of Cavill and Cockle’s Geralts have now merged, with Cockle bringing his unmistakable voice to Netflix’s interpretation of the character in the new animated movie, The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep.

While he’s not playing the same version of Geralt who appears in the games, Cockle was not asked to alter his performance to sound more like or include the mannerisms of Henry Cavill or Liam Hemsworth, who replaces Cavill as Geralt in the next season of the live-action show. This creative decision meant Cockle was able to draw upon the same method and approach that created the unmistakably gravelly tones of his Geralt of Rivia. And so you’ll still hear the same voice you’ve known and loved for nearly 20 years.

Cockle formulated that voice back in 2005 when recording dialogue for the first Witcher video game. “The thing I found most challenging about recording Witcher 1 was actually the voice itself,” Cockle recalls. “When I first started recording the game, (Geralt’s) voice was very, very far down in my register. It was something I had to push towards.”

At the time there was little guidance as to how long voice actors should spend recording in a single session, and so Cockle was spending eight or nine hours per day delivering that gravelly voice. “I was going back to my hotel just going, ‘Wow, my throat is ripped’,” he recalls. The struggle continued into the recording of The Witcher 2 a few years later, but Cockle’s vocal chords eventually strengthened and began attuned to what was required of them — a process he sheepishly likens to an athlete's muscles getting into shape.

Cockle’s vocal chords adapting to better support