Henry Cavill’s Sword-Fighting Skills in The Witcher May Have Heavily Influenced Mackenyu’s Zoro in One Piece

Henry Cavill has been a perfectionist when it comes to playing roles in his favorite franchises. From portraying the role of August Walker to being the best variant of Weapon X in Deadpool & Wolverine, the actor has proved his range over the years. However, his most epic defining role, other than the obvious, would be that of Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher.

The actor had gone to extreme lengths to learn the art of sword fighting, especially looking at the duel with Vilgefortz in Season 3 of the show. The sword fight could not have gone any better, but recently Mackenyu’s portrayal of Roronoa Zoro in One Piece’s live adaptation gained praise from the viewers.

Throughout the Netflix adaptation, Arata-San’s fluid fight scenes as the fan-favorite character were greatly appreciated by the viewers, as they enjoyed watching Eiichiro Oda’s vision in a new avatar. However, one producer opened up about how Cavill’s portrayal in the Netflix original played an important role in the series.

Henry Cavill’s Sword Skills Inspired Mackenyu’s Fight Scenes

In recent times, the One Piece live-action adaptation has grown immense notoriety in the scene, especially because of how popular it has grown. The series knocked out the anime-adaptation curse, which is true in its regards as the show is the talk of the town with the second season releasing sometime in the near future.

While each cast member played their roles flawlessly, it was Mackenyu’s portrayal of the Pirate Hunter that made it so exhilarating to watch. With dynamic fight scenes featuring Eiichiro Oda’s iconic Straw Hat Pirates, the fluidity following the sword fights was on a whole different level.

During an exclusive interview with CinemaBlend, the interviewers asked Marc Jobst, the director of One Piece, the burning question of how he managed to achieve such fluidity.

He answered,

To achieve the fluidity, one of the things that I learned when I was shooting the sword fight for the pilot of The Witcher is that if you have an operator dedicated to the stunt team, they learn the choreography with the camera as well. So in Henry Cavill’s sword fight, because he was such a brilliant sword fighter himself, I wanted to show that.

Jobst emphasized that the fewer cuts a fight scene would feature, the “incredible athleticism” that would make the viewers appreciate the beauty of the fight scenes, including the Moss Head. He added,

And the more you cut it up, the less you kind of show it because it just becomes a jumble of cuts, but the more you can keep the camera going and going around the action, the more you begin to see the incredible athleticism, the choreography, the beauty of real proper fighting. And when it comes to Zoro, when it comes to Nami, when it comes to Luffy, who are the three that I was dealing with in the first two, they are all highly skilled fighters.

Nevertheless, Henry Cavill himself had been part of some of the most epic fights in the adaptation, where the camera operator would dedicate his skills to capture the movements fluidly, which made his work look so effortless.

Eiichiro Oda’s Lack of Instructions Made Mackenyu’s Life Harder

There’s no denying that One Piece live-action has been so successful because Eiichiro Oda has been a major part of the show’s production. Hence, when the information was made public knowledge, fans were all the more excited to watch the series.

However, that did not help the cast members to have an easy time on the set because Oda-Sensei’s lack of instruction made the task more challenging. During an exclusive interview via Cosmopolitan, Mackenyu shed light on how the lack of instructions from the creator compelled him to work harder on the role. He said,

It would have been a lot easier if he gave me specific tips and details about what to do with Zoro, but he didn’t. That made it hard.

Though it made the lives of the cast members difficult on the set, this made the cast members, especially Mackenyu, bring their own interpretation to the character, making it unique while respecting the source material.

One Piece live-action and The Witcher can be streamed on Netflix.