The bard, played by Joey Batey, and mage, played by Anya Chalotra, appeared to hate each other, or at the very least, found the other frustrating in every possible way.
But Season 2 of the fantasy series sees something unexpected happen: Jaskier and Yennefer become friends.
WARNING: This article contains minor spoilers for The Witcher Season 2
The pair bond after Yennefer runs away with villain Cahir (Eamon Farren) and tries to get to Nilfgaard, a journey they can only do with the Jaskier’s aid as he has begun helping elves traverse The Continent safely under the guise of The Sandpiper.
Batey spoke with Newsweek about the two characters’ bond, saying he and Chalotra were “begging” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich to have more scenes together in the new season because they’re such great friends.
“Anya and I have been begging for scenes together since since we met in Season 1,” Batey explained. “We’re good pals and I’m a huge fan of hers and her talent, she’s just an amazing actress and we’ve been sort of asking Lauren, ‘please can we have a little bit more, a little bit more,’ because it is really fun to play that sort of, you know, surface level hatred but a growing and developing fondness.
“Quite a lot of the scenes I shot with Anya were shot at about four o’clock in the morning, during night shoots, and so when you get to that time of day you start to strip away a lot of the artifice, for me I mean, [and] some of the jokes start to land not as heavily as they would otherwise.
“You start to find little nuances and sentences that fully-conscious Joey might not have been able to do, and it becomes freer, it becomes more intimate.”
Referencing Jaskier’s work as The Sandpiper and Yennefer’s own challenges after losing her magic, Batey went on: “There’s an acknowledgement of one another’s pain and grief that they’re both experiencing loss.
“They’re both trying to work out who they are and how they fit into this Continent that is changing so rapidly, and exploring that in Season 2 and beyond it’s going to be something that I think brings more texture to the characters, and makes them more complex, and hopefully more interesting to watch.”
Working with Anya Chalotra on set
Going on to discuss what it was like to work with Chalotra, Batey was full of praise for his co-star, saying she was a “good egg” but that he wished he was able to make her break character during a scene.
He said: “It’s very easy to be friends with Anya, she’s the nicest person in the world. I don’t know anyone who could possibly not be friends with her, she’s just a good egg and she’s such a delightfully open human being.
“She’s very, very open to collaboration and people’s ideas, and is so present, and so it’s very easy, and it always has been very, very easy, to develop any kind of onscreen relationship.
“However, the one annoying thing is that she’s the one person I think in the entire show that I’ve not been able to make laugh accidentally, that I’ve not been able to make her [break character], so I’m coming for her!
“I am determined in Season 3 to get her to break at some point but she’s just so still, and so stoic, and just channels this harshness and coldness to Yennefer that is impervious to Jaskier’s nonsense.
“But that’s the the joy of working with her, she’s just so respectful, so professional, and so amazingly talented.”
One scene Batey and Chalotra have together is not such a laughing matter, though, because it sees Yennefer having to use her quick thinking to help save Jaskier when he is abducted and tortured by villain Rience (Chris Fulton), which the actor said was one of his “hardest scenes” in Season 2.
Looking back at the scene, Batey reflected: “It was really difficult, it was one of the hardest scenes. It was very cold that day, it looks like we’re indoors but we’re actually outdoors, I think it’s the nature of these sets that we use.
“Chris Fulton, who plays Rience, was so wonderful that day, because he is kind of nothing like his character. He’s such an amenable, lovely guy, and then watching him slip into this sadistic, hateful creature made my job so much easier.
“But it was hard too, that took a day and a half to shoot that whole sequence and to maintain that level of intensity and to draw upon some of the darkest moments in my life, just to experience it all again, and make it as truthful and as genuine as possible, was really difficult.
“But it did mean that we once again get to kind of see if Jaskier can talk his way out of anything, and for the first time he’s starting to go up against certain people, and powers, and forces.
“And from that there is panic, there is fear, these are the sorts of things where you start to realise he doesn’t have his best friend to help him out anymore.
“And yet, that bravery that still comes from him and also the loyalty, he doesn’t give anything away in spite of the fact that he does have information, that tells us more about the character than I think any of the jokes, or any of the songs, ever could.”
Jaskier and Geralt Reuniting
One thing fans will have to wait to enjoy is Jaskier reuniting with Geralt in Season 2 as it happens in the latter half of the season, and Batey joked he didn’t “care about” Cavill’s character.
When asked about the pair being together onscreen again, Batey quipped: “Oh, I don’t care about Geralt! Henry can do what he likes.
“You know, one of my favourite things about Season 1 was that they talked about putting me in to Episode 7 and 8 but I suggested I’d really like it to leave us on this mountain, and to come back in Season 2 and enjoy that space and that time.
“What I do love about this season is that we’ve got so much more time to get to know the characters, there’s a lot more dialogue, a lot more stillness, and that continues throughout into Season 2 and hopefully well in Season 3 as well.
“So it’s really nice to see Jaskier separate from Geralt, away from Geralt, and we get to know him way more. I’ve [got] less screen time in Season 2, and yet we get to know him way more because of Lauren’s writing.”
Despite the pair sharing scenes from Episode 7 onwards, Batey then said: “I don’t remember filming any scenes with Henry. I think I must have done I’ve gone into a fugue state, I don’t remember!”
The Witcher Season 2 is out globally on Netflix now.
