Shadowing Practice: Henry Cavill About Gaming And The Witcher 3 - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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I have been a fan of the fantasy genre since I was a boy.
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I have been a fan of the fantasy genre since I was a boy.
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My dad would read to me before I could read, and then any of my free time spent reading has always been, well, more often than not, has been reading fantasy genre.
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I'm a big PC gamer as well, and so I spent a lot of my time playing role-playing games in that genre, and played The Witcher games.
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I played The Witcher 3 through twice and then I just, this is the kind of thing I do.
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This is the kind of thing I do in my free time.
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So the opportunity to work on this for real and make it my job as well, get paid for doing my hobby stuff, was ideal.
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And I just wanted to make sure that Geralt was represented as accurately as possible.
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So these are books that you read as a kid and now you get to play the character.
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I didn't read the books as a kid, I played the games.
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They released a game called Witcher 3 about five years ago now played that game to the death.
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Really?
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And then I heard it was coming out, I met the showrunner, and that's when I learned there were books.
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Read the books and I realized I was missing out on the whole world of the stuff.
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Because I've been into the fantasy genre since I was a kid.
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Since before I could read, my dad was reading me fantasy books.
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When it comes to fans, it is a fan's right to have whatever opinion they want to have.
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And people are going to be upset, because especially when you're talking about books or games, because you're never going to be the exact person who they had in their head
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or who they played on Witcher 3, for example.
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I don't necessarily consider that toxic, I just consider that passionate.
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And it's something which I obviously had to come to terms with over the years.
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Did you play the video games as a research?
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I...
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Yes, I did.
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In fact, I played the video games before reading the books.
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I thought the books were based upon the games because any time I saw a Witcher book, it was always game art on the cover.
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and after meeting with Lauren she told me about the books I ended up reading the books and loving them.
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I've been a fan of fantasy genre since I was knee-high to a grasshopper
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and so for me it was a real treat to jump into that and Sapkowski's writing incredible.
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PlayStation or Xbox?
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PC.
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Oh wow, you're a PC gamer?
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Yeah.
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Was that from when you were young?
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Yes, my dad got me into that when I was very very young.
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Did you kind of build your own gaming PC?
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I have not quite ventured into building my own myself.
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I've definitely had custom PCs over the years.
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That will be the next project.
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As soon as I find enough time and the bravery, I might put my own PC together.
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Yes, I knew about it.
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I'm a big gamer.
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I played the games and I read the books and I loved both of them.
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I love the adaptation that the games is of the books
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and it's a wonderful opportunity for me and indeed for us to be adapting the books into our own way.
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And yeah, it's been an amazing journey and one I'm looking forward to continuing.
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Were you guys surprised to find out that he was a gamer?
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No. No. Not really.
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No. Not at all.
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No, I wear my geek on my sleeve these days.
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Right, right.
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So why did you choose this role in this show, this series, Henry?
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I have been a big fan of the IP for a while now.
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And I first was introduced to it via the games.
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The book series on which this is based?
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Yes, yes.
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And then I learned that there were games, sorry, books.
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And that was written by a guy called Andrew Sapkowski.
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And the books are absolutely fantastic.
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You sought this rollout.
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You're the one who...
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Absolutely.
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Why?
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I mean, you just love the games, love the books?
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I love the games.
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The games are, especially Witcher 3, super immersive.
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And I don't know if anyone here is a gamer or anything, if anyone has played the games, but super immersive.
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And when I was playing it, I always thought I'd make a great movie or TV show.
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No kidding?
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Yeah, yeah.
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And then I do that a lot with a lot of games, a lot of games and books.
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And then I heard that Netflix were making it, and I had my agents on the phone every day, literally every day.
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I would call them and say, anything yet?
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Call them again.
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And we got through eventually, and they said, look, we haven't got a script yet.
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We've barely got a showrunner, so we can't give you an answer.
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But you front-loaded your interest.
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Yes.
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That's got to help right there.
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They knew that I wanted it, for sure. For sure.
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So I know I might be offending people out there when I say that, when I think of gamers.
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I think of a guy in his sweats, you know, some chips, Fritos, just sitting around.
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All things I like, sweat, chips, fritos.
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Seriously?
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Yeah, yeah.
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Really?
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Absolutely.
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Okay.
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I mean, not all the time.
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No, I understand.
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Clearly not.
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But I mean, that's how you...
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Give me the gaming...
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I guess...
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Like, you wanna know what I look like when I'm gaming?
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No, I...
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What's your gaming man cave look like, essentially?
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My gaming...
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I mean, I live in...
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I've never asked...
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Just so you understand, I've never asked another human being, what do you look like while you're gaming?
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I wouldn't, but I'm glad I eventually got to what I wanted to ask.
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Maybe one of these days I'll send you a photo. Would you?
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Yeah.
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Please send gaming.
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Just FaceTime me, Henry.
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That's all I'm asking.
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It doesn't matter if you're gaming or not.
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I'll live stream you.
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But what does it look like?
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I mean, where are you?
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I don't have a man cave.
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I've got a small muse house in London.
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What a muse is, it's like an old stables, and they've been converted into houses over the years.
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Okay.
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And it's not huge.
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So my computer desk is in my very small living room.
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Right.
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And it's just at the end there.
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That's interesting.
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Nothing special.
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Well, nothing special.
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It's just a converted barn, right?
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It's not even a converted barn.
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It's not.
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The stables themselves are all separate houses.
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Yeah.
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So it's one set of stables.
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Yeah, see, this doesn't sound like any gaming experience I've ever heard.
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No, it doesn't look like a stables either.
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It's not like sawdust and horses and stuff.
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I'm maybe painting the wrong kind of picture.
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Yeah.
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Although if you want to believe that, believe that.
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Why not?
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Just get the hair out of the way, I can't see my controller.
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So what else do you game?
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What else do you play?
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Anything else?
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I play PC games rather than console games.
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Okay.
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But Total War's is a big one for me.
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Okay.
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It's like a strategic world conquest type thing.
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You know, as one does.
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So are you out there where somebody is just gaming against you, they have no idea that they possibly are in a virtual world with Henry Cavill?
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World of Warcraft?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, but that's the only online game I play for now.
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Okay.
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Not an Overwatch. But, yeah.
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Those are pretty very popular.
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Yeah, those are big ones.
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So do you watch some of the professional gaming?
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Do you ever sit around and do that sort of thing?
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I barely have time to play myself these days.
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I bet.
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And so if I'm watching pro gamers, I'm not wasting gaming.
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I have a buddy of mine who owns one of these teams, okay?
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Okay.
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They're a big deal.
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They're huge.
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Yeah.
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I mean, they're beginning to give out scholarship, like actual academic scholarships.
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Absolutely.
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At big universities, but I don't know what the hell I'm looking at.
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I mean, and my friend is like, oh, we're close.
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We're close to winning.
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And I'm like, okay, I have no earthly idea.
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But can you, I know, you can follow that sort of stuff though, huh?
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Depends on the game.
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Okay. But yeah.
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All right.
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In the love scenes, the bathtub scene went absolutely viral on the internet.
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Did you expect that type of reaction from fans?
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Absolutely.
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Yeah, I'm a big fan of the games as well.
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And the bathtub scene is a massive piece of the games.
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And so, yeah, no, I knew what was happening when it was happening.
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I was like, okay, here we go.
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Like, I don't know if they know, but.
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I'm a big gamer and so I played the games a lot and
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Then when I heard
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that the show was becoming a thing It was a bit like a an opportunity dream come true to
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if Henry I know your background You are a gamer
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and the series of courses is based on the books But the games are also based off the books as well.
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Yep, and or and for you, too It's like how do you bring those all together and balance all that out?
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Because there's a large portion of the audience
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that has only played the games and not read the books and kind of making it all feel at home.
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For me, personally, it's like...
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It would be like playing another run of The Witcher 3, but with a completely different skin on.
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And that, I think, would be interesting.
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Because I've played it through a number of times now, and it's like, okay, cool, I've done it, I've seen it, and I still get that same enjoyment out of playing it through, but what if I could play it slightly differently?
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Then, yeah, this is kind of what it is for me when you're doing the show.
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Yes, it's Geralt of Rivia, the Witcher, but he looks like me now.
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And for me, that's an interesting thing.
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It creates a freshness to it because the themes are still very similar. Will there be Gwent?
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We can't talk about that.
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When I heard Doug Cockle's incredible performance in Witcher 3, which I've heard time after time and time again, because I've played the games a lot.
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Fulfilling my end of the bargain brought you the head just like you wanted.
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I realized that I could utilize something like that and create this stony exterior, and I wasn't going to make him American,
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like Doug Cockle performed in The Witcher.
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And so I kind of blended my natural accent with that gravelly tone which Doug uses.
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My tone tended to be a little deeper, his was more into the whisper range.
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That was going to show the boiled down essence of who Geralt was.
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I want to ask you about your geeky and gamer side.
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Oh, okay.
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So because when we heard that your first approach to Geralt was through a video game, how much of a gamer are you?
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I'm very much of a gamer.
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I mean, it depends on who I'm talking to.
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If I'm talking to the average person, very much massively a gamer.
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But if I'm talking to a pro gamer, no, he would probably, he or she would think that I'm not as much of a gamer.
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I only have a certain amount of time in my life, actually.
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I was going to say my free time, but I don't have much of that either, where I get to play computer games.
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And when I do, I get very involved.
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I really get stuck into it, especially when it's a good game that comes along like Witcher 3 or the Total War series.
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Love those.
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What are you playing right now?
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It depends.
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It depends where I am because I'm traveling right now, so online games are pretty much out of the question.
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Total War, Warhammer 2, that's the one which I'm on now because that's always a good jump in game.
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I can always jump in, play for a bit, play for a few hours, pass the time, jump out again, and then I can come back and nothing's changed.
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I'm looking forward to the new World of Warcraft coming out.
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that looks good and how they're resetting everything down to 60, that's going to be cool because it makes the game a lot more playable.
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I never got back into the retail version of the game.
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That's why I enjoyed jumping into Classic because it was 0 to 60 and it felt obtainable where the retail version, it was, I don't know what they got up to,
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a hundred and something.
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And you just think, I mean, it's, that's just so unobtainable and so far away to start the whole game again.
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I didn't really want to do that but now they're resetting everything from zero to 60, so I'm looking forward to that.
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When you guys watch the show, you can say, that is a Cavill piece of The Witcher, and hopefully that will translate wonderfully and people will love it and it'll become a great thing,
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like Doug Cockle's voice in Witcher 3, for example.
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If I were to use one example which people can compare to something, it would be the voice.
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Doug Cockle did his voice in Witcher 3.
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I was doing a voice at the start of the show and I was like, this isn't working.
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I need to bring some more gravitas to the voice.
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And I loved Doug's performance, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't just going to be a carbon copy of Doug's performance.
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And so instead of doing the American accent, I gave it to my own natural accent.
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And Doug's voice in The Witcher 3 is in more of a whisper register. Where...
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Yours is more like...
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It's a bit sort of gravelly, more gravelly.
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And they are similar, there are comparisons, especially when one is conveying different emotions depending on whatever.
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And I can't wait to sit down with Doug and actually talk about this.
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But it's, yeah, that's the one thing which I think I could probably say that's what I did and it was very, very consciously done.
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About This Lesson
This lesson focuses on enhancing your English speaking skills through a fascinating discussion about Henry Cavill's experiences with gaming and the fantasy genre, specifically the series "The Witcher." By engaging with this content, learners will improve their vocabulary, pronunciation, and fluency while practicing the shadowing technique. This method allows you to imitate native speakers, helping you refine your speaking abilities in an enjoyable and relatable context.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Fantasy genre - a category of fiction that includes magical elements and imaginary worlds.
- Role-playing games (RPGs) - games where players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting.
- Adaptation - a version of a story or work that has been transformed into another medium.
- Represented - shown or depicted, particularly in a way that captures the essence of the character or story.
- Passionate - having or showing intense enthusiasm or interest.
- Custom PCs - personal computers that have been specifically built or tailored to the user’s preferences.
- Bravery - the quality of being courageous, especially when trying something new.
- Gaming PC - a personal computer designed to play video games at a high performance.
Practice Tips
To maximize your learning experience, here are some effective practices to implement while using the transcript:
- Engage in shadow speech: Listen to the video carefully and try to imitate the speaker's intonation and speed. This will help you familiarize yourself with natural English pronunciation.
- Use a shadowing app to repeat phrases after Henry Cavill. This can enhance your listening skills and help you retain vocabulary.
- Focus on the tone and expression: Henry's conversational style is relaxed but passionate, which adds depth to his words. Pay attention to his rhythm as you practice.
- Consider your fluency by gradually increasing the speed at which you shadow. Start slow, and as you become more comfortable, challenge yourself with faster speech.
- Practice speaking aloud: After shadowing, try to summarize the main ideas in your own words. This will aid in preparing for IELTS speaking practice.
Incorporating these techniques will enhance your English fluency while also making the learning process enjoyable and engaging.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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