Henry Cavill Speaks Out After Suffering Leg Injury While Training for Highlander

Henry Cavill got poetic about the leg injury he sustained while preparing for his new film Highlander, sharing a photo of his wound with the poem “Invictus.”

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Just call him Lord Henry Byron.

Henry Cavill tapped into his poetic side as he addressed a leg injury he sustained while training for his upcoming film, Highlander.

The 42-year-old shared a selfie with his sweet pup Baggins to Instagram Sept. 18, alongside a photo of his bandaged left foot, captioning the photos with William Ernest Henley’s 1888 poem “Invictus.”

“Out of the night that covers me / Black as the pit from pole to pole,” Cavill posted from the poem. “I thank whatever gods may be / For my unconquerable soul.”

And the words likely had a special meaning for the Superman alum, as it was written by Henley as he recovered from leg surgery. The poet had to have his left leg amputated as a child due to complications from tuberculosis, but later in life was able to find a surgeon who saved his right leg.

The poem ends with the famous line, “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.”

Cavill had injured himself while doing pre-production training for Highlander, according to a Sept. 11 report from Deadline. The injury was severe enough to cause a delay in shooting, which the outlet noted would likely not start up again until early next year.

Henry Cavill/Instagram

The film—also starring Russell Crowe, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou and Dave Bautista—is a remake of 1986’s Highlander, originally starring Christopher Lambert and SeanConnery. The fantasy film follows the story of immortal Scottish highlanders as they battle through time.

And while the movie was not well received in the ‘80s, it has become a cult classic over the years—something Cavill alluded to when discussing his role in the remake.

“I am a lover of the original movies,” he shared at CinemaCon in 2024, per The Hollywood Reporter, “for better or worse.”

Henry Cavill/Instagram

The Witcher alum—who welcomed a baby girl with girlfriend Natalie Viscuso earlier this year—confessed that he wasn’t sure where the Michael Finch-penned script was going at first, but once he realized that Finch and the film’s director Chad Stahelski were “going deep into the meaning of these characters, their trials and tribulations,” he was on board.

“If you think you’ve seen me do sword work before,” he teased, “you haven’t seen anything yet.”

For more films set to hit theaters soon, keep reading.