Henry Cavill on Sword Training for ‘Highlander’, Talks ‘In the Grey’

Henry Cavill had a lot to talk about in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning at CinemaCon.

The actor turned up on the Colosseum main stage inside Caesars Palace during Lionsgate‘s presentation to talk up a series of projects he’s doing with the studio including Chad Stahelski’s Highlander and two Guy Ritchie films, this Friday’s release The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and the upcoming In the Grey opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Eiza Gonzalez.

Cavill walked out to join Lionsgate motion picture group chair Adam Fogelson for a brief Q&A that started with Fogelson mentioning the facial hair Cavill sports in Ungentlemanly Warfare. “Is there any facial hair that does not look good on you?” Fogelson asked to which Cavill replied, “We’ve tried a few.”

He continued by saying that he loved his look on Ritchie’s actioner though it’s “not my usual thing aside from a controversial mustache early in my career.”

The conversation then turned to Ritchie’s In the Grey, marking another collaboration with the director. “At this stage, we are old friends,” Cavill said of the back-to-back collaborations. “So much so that he will throw a monologue at me that I have to learn [that day].” Cavill then praised Gyllenhaal as not only an incredible talent but a great guy. He expects that audiences will “see both of us onscreen more often.”

“Guy creates a wonderful environemnt on set,” Cavill continued. “There’s a creative freedom, certainly that’s where the new monologues come from. People often stand up on stages and say, ‘it’s like family.’ To a degree it is, but not necessarily the family you want to keep hanging out with all the time. In Guys’ case it really is like family. There is a shorthand, there is a freedom of friendship and in that space, wonderful creative things happen.”

Lastly, the pair discussed the anticipated Highlander reboot, which Cavill is currently training for to play the immortal Scottish hero. “I am a lover of the original movies, for better or worse,” Cavill said. “It’s one of those things where reading the script, I wasn’t quite sure where they were going to go.” What he discovered is that Stahelski and the team are “going deep into the meaning of these characters, their trials and tribulations.”

He then teased something that should get fans stoked to see what they come up with: “If you think you’ve seen me do sword work before, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

With that, Cavill exited the stage with a pleasant, “Enjoy Vegas” to the crowd of theater owners. Fogelson got the last words and some laughs by saying, “There’s a list of things I have to prepare for every year, one of those is standing next to people who look like that.”