Henry Cavill’s favourite Netflix series of all time: “I couldn’t stop watching it”
He might not be Superman anymore, but Henry Cavill is still one hell of a guy.
Outside of his adventures in red tights, the rugged idol has cropped up in other major franchises like Mission: Impossible and Enola Holmes. He’s moved into episodic TV with The Witcher and has taken on many other roles that highlight his blistering masculinity. The best thing about him, however, isn’t his acting or that he seems like a genuinely nice guy in interviews; it’s that he’s a big ol’ dork.
Despite looking like your typical douchebag jock, Cavill loves nothing more than getting stuck in something that would have definitely gotten him wedgied at high school. From video games to building his own computer to being an unapologetic fan of the Warhammer tabletop game, he is a full-fledged nerd and proud of it. That’s one of the reasons why he was so appealing as the ‘Man of Steel’—comic book fans felt like their hero was one of them.
This geeky streak is so well known that people within the industry have started taking advantage of it. During an interview with BBC Radio 1’s film critic Ali Plumb, the British star was instructed to watch the animated Netflix series Arcane, and true to nerd form, years later, when the two met again for a second interview, the actor revealed that he’d done his homework.
“I went home immediately, and I was like, ‘Right, Natalie… I was told by this guy at work that I should watch Arcane’,” Cavill said, “She was like, ‘Oh no, I’ve heard some pretty good things about it’. I couldn’t stop watching it, and it got really late, and Matthew was going, ‘Right, we should probably go to bed’. I was like, ‘No no no no no! Gotta keep on watching!’… I’m very thankful that you introduced me to that because I may have missed it otherwise.”
First airing on the red streaming service in 2012, Arcane is an action-adventure series set in the same universe as the popular video game League of Legends. It stars Hailee Steinfeld and Ella Purnell as two sisters caught in a conflict between a wealthy city and its poorer underworld. The series contains many themes of class inequality and social injustice, as the ‘Topsiders’ live in luxury while their bottom-dwelling counterparts struggle to get by. It’s also got nice animation and bright colours, if you fancy something a bit more lowbrow.
Arcane is one of the many TV shows that have sprung up in recent years based on a video game. The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, Fallout (which also stars Purnell), and more have all gone down well among both their networks and respective fanbases. Cavill is old enough to remember when video games were considered a niche interest and the few pieces of media that were based on them were destined for the bargain bin, evidence that the medium has come a long way and shows no signs of slowing down.
Unfortunately, the show ended in 2024 after just two seasons, and while Cavill will never get a chance to lend his dulcet tones to the world of Piltover and Zaun, chances are something equally as nerdy will come along to tickle his fancy.
