Henry Cavill is the kind of man who seems to play just as hard as he works. Known for his love of gaming—from video to analog games, like Warhammer—Cavill might be the ultimate cool geek; just as comfortable in the gym as he is playing Dungeons and Dragons or 1980s arcade classics. Having just finished shooting on Chad Stahelski’s Highlander reboot, Cavill is creating some exciting projects based on his own passions. And one of those projects involves crafting a new video game with Googlebook and its AI tech, Antigravity.
As Cavill prepares to reveal his new video game to the world in November, Men’s Journal caught up with the actor to talk about this new project, his love of gaming, and his passion for the original 1986 Highlander. Along the way, he revealed his opinion on thinking of swordplay as a form of fitness, but also dropped a key detail about the new Highlander: The fights in the movie won’t be pre-rehearsed. Instead, every fight was created on set, during the day of filming.
Men’s Journal: I understand you’re creating your own video game with Googlebook. Can you unpack that for me?
Henry Cavill: I’m a big gamer! But don’t be expecting something triple-A from what I do. I’m no game developer, but this is something that Google and I were playing with. We just wanted to show what Google Antigravity can do and how much fun one can have with it. It’s a retro-style video game, and I don’t want to give away too much immediately because when you see it for the first time, it’s an awful lot of fun. But there’s plenty of humor and things that are personal to me involved.
You say “vintage,” but what do we mean by that? Some people think the early 2000s means vintage…
Yes, of course! Vintage is relative, I suppose. But I’m thinking ’80s. This game reminds me very much of some of the Nintendo games I used to play when I was a wee boy.
Why do you love working on Googlebook?
Technology is marching on very fast, and the integrated Gemini systems with the Googlebook make the workflow easier. It feels like the beginning of something. It’s a really concerted effort to make sure that everything works in sync—and especially running my production company—that’s something which I find incredibly useful.
Me and my team are already playing with some ideas about creating products that are going to make workflow a lot easier for productions. And it’s things like that where you get to sit down yourself and tinker with something. You can talk to the Googlebook. Ramble is such a wonderful tool because you can literally sit there and just ramble away, and then AntiGravity can build something which can genuinely make your life or work a lot easier. I love that.
You’re doing an 80s-inspired video game, but you’ve also just finished shooting the reboot of a 1986 classic: Highlander. What can you tell me about the new movie? Will 80s kids love it?
I think you are going to be pleased. It has everything that you love about Highlander, because it’s all the things that I loved as well; we’ve kept all those. We’ve built upon those. And all the other stuff which maybe feels a little dated for how far we’ve come with filmmaking and action, we’ve built upon those and evolved them. It’s Chad Stahelski we’re talking about here.
When people think Chad Stahelski, they think action, but he’s so much more than that. He is such a wonderful storyteller and world-builder. When you really look at the John Wick franchise, there’s such an incredible world that he has built there and a visual language. Now, he’s applying that level of genius to Highlander. We’re in the editing process at the moment, so things are still being shaped and molded, but I’m incredibly excited for everyone to see what we’ve done.
Okay, so all the sword-fighting in Highlander must be a tremendous workout. Any sword-related fitness hacks?
I would never be caught saying you should play with swords. I do, however, and yes. Working to that level of action, of which Chad drives, is beyond anything I’ve ever done, and it requires incredible fitness. It’s really down to martial arts being a very good workout. I wouldn’t necessarily say sword work in particular is a fitness aspect, but it’s the plethora of martial arts I was being trained in, which made the big difference.
I trained for about two years to prep for Highlander. What they did was train me in various different styles of martial arts, various different styles of swords, and various different disciplines. Then, I had a lexicon of moves and abilities, and they knew what I was really good at and they knew what I wasn’t so good at. Then, we could build something on the day, which was always the case. I was learning every single fight I did in those moments before we shot it. And you can only do that when you have that level of training with someone or a group like 87Eleven, which is Chad Stahelski’s company.
I went well beyond exhaustion on a daily basis, but it always felt worth it. It always felt enormously, well, it feels now enormously rewarding, and it always felt worth it at the end of the day.
You can learn more about Herny Cavill’s partnership with Googlebook here.
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