• Joey Batey is a popular British actor who started his career in theatre in London
• He graduated in 2015 with a BA in Modern and Medieval Languages and studied at École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq
• In 2019 he landed the role of Jaskier in Netflix's "The Witcher" series
• He founded the folk-rock band "The Amazing Devil" in 2015 and released the album "Love Run" in 2016
• His hobbies include playing various instruments, sports, and he is fluent in French and Spanish
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Joey Batey is a popular British actor, who started his career in the theatres of London. In 2019 Joey landed the role of Jaskier in “The Witcher” series, launched by Netflix, and woke up famous the next day after the series was released online.
Early life and family
Joey Batey was born in 1993, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Little is known about his family except that his spent his childhood living with his parents. He was supported by his family from an early age to do whatever he likes in his life, so Joey did a lot of sports, took music and singing classes whenever he had some spare time from his studying.
Educational background
After matriculating from his local high school in 2011, Joey enrolled at Cambridge University, and graduated with honors from there in 2015, with a BA in Modern and Medieval Languages. He also studied at École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq (Jacques Lecoq’s International Theatre School) in Paris.
Career
Theatre career
Joey started acting on stage when he was still a student in high school, debuting in the title role of Tyne Theatre Stage School’s production of “Macbeth”. In 2009 he played Speed in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” on the Cambridge American Stage , and Benvolio in “Romeo and Juliet” at The Marlowe Society.
In 2010 Joey was in more demand, appearing as Dylan in The Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club’s production of “The Cure”, as Face in the production of The Marlowe Society entitled “The Alchemist” and as Horatio in “Hamlet”, produced by the British Shakespeare Association. He also played in the European Theatre Group’s production of “Hamlet”, at that time performing the part of Laertes, and also appeared in another Shakespeare play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, landing the role of Bottom in European Theatre Groups’ production. In 2011 Joey had a very fruitful co-operation with the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club (CUADC), working in three productions of the theatre, as Konstantin in “The Seagull”, Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet”, and as Brother in “Pornography”.
The same year Joey also played Petruchio in “Taming of the Shrew”, produced by European Theatre Group, and Fish in “Not About Angels” by Ribbon Theatre. Later Joey could be seen in the musical directed by Joshua Stamp-Simon in the CUADC production of “Merrily We Roll Along” (2012) in the role of Frank. He also took part in “Comedy of Errors” (2013) of The Marlowe Society, “Wolf Hall / Bring Up The Bodies” (2014) of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and its Broadway transfer entitled “Wolf Hall. Parts I + II” (2015) in the role of Mark Smeaton.
Television career
Joey has been appearing in TV films and series since 2013 – that year he landed minor roles in “Murder On The Front”, “The White Queen” and “Whitechapel”.
In 2016 he landed the role of Shelley in BBC’s series “In The Dark”; the same year he played Gopher in “Mount Pleasant” and Pierre in “Knightfall”. He also had the role of Al Rokeby in the “Strike” series, in the episode entitled “The Silkworm”. Joey played Bobby in “Stan Lee’s Lucky Man” (2017) and Callum Ballimore in “Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators” (2018). In BBC’s “The War Of The Worlds” Joey played Arnold Henderson. As to movies, Joey landed the role of Eager Chap in “The Riot Club” (2013) and also appeared as Eddie in “Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool” (2016).
Music career, the folk-rock band “The Amazing Devil”
Joey co-founded the band entitled “The Amazing Devil” in 2015, which mostly plays folk and folk-rock, and released their album “Love Run” in 2016. Another album of the band entitled “The Horror And The Wild” is coming up in February 2020.
Another performer in the band is Madeleine Kate Hyland who is also an actress working in The Factory Theatre.
Jaskier in “The Witcher”
In December 2019 Joey appeared in the new series launched by Netflix – the highly anticipated “The Witcher”, based on the book of the Polish fantasy writer, Andrzej Sapkowski. Jaskier is one of the main characters in the series, a minstrel, poet, writer and bard, who plays the lute and follows Geralt in many of his adventures, not taking part in any fighting though. Jaskier’s real name is Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. His character is famous for his numerous affairs with many ladies, including Duchess Anna Henrietta, and Geralt often got him out of trouble, when Jaskier was followed or threatened by the relatives (mostly brothers and husbands) of his lovers.
Netflix decided to keep the Polish version of the name of the minstrel, Jaskier, which literally means “Buttercup” in English, but the character was named Dandelion in the game series about Geralt’s adventures, as the name “Buttercup” sounded too feminine for the game developers.
Joey shared that he enjoyed working on the series, and made friends with many other actors. Anya Chalotra, who landed the role of Yennefer, shared that they were close friends even before they got together in “The Witcher”: ‘Joey [Batey] is one of my closest friends <…>. He’s an absolute dream to work with and to share the whole experience with’, she said during her roundtable interview at SDCC (San Diego Comic Con).
In the second episode, “Four Marks”, of the first season of “The Witcher”, the character Jaskier performs the song he improvised while following Geralt, after their not-so-successful hunt for the devil of the fields. Jaskier announces he is going to follow Geralt wherever he goes and glorify his victories over the monsters, singing the song “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher”. The song, composed by the pianist Sonya Belousova and the composer Giona Ostinelli, went viral at once, creating many memes with the lyrics from the song. However, the joke went too far: on 26 December the hackers threatened the courts of Saint Petersburg, Russia, with bombs mined in the buildings, including the quotes from the song about witcher in their anonymous letters: ‘Make Malofey toss a coin to the witcher’, they wrote in their message to Konstantin Malofeyev, the entrepreneur who allegedly owned the terrorists 120 Bitcoins.
That day more than 15 universities and colleges were evacuated due to the messages of the bombs in their buildings. Joey himself admits that he is too tired of the song which haunts him every day, and he can’t get it out of his head.
Hobbies, favorite things and interesting facts
Joey can speak fluent French and Spanish, more than 12 accents and dialects, including Cockney, Geordie, Glaswegian, Yorkshire, as well as American Standard, Scottish-Standard and Irish-Southern. He is very strong in RP – Received Pronunciation, also called Standard British pronunciation.
Among the instruments Joey can play are the guitar, bass and electric guitar, various keyboards, and also lute and drums. Joey is a songwriter and sings Tenor. Since his early years Joey was into sports, and still plays badminton as it’s one of his favorite sports. He also enjoys playing and watching football, climbing and swimming.
Among fighting sports, he likes medieval sword fighting, fencing and kickboxing, and he also practices stage combat. He is computer literate, and has enjoyed working as a translator and interpreter.
Appearance, clothing style
Joey has dark brown hair and blue-grey eyes. He is 5ft 11ins (1.80m) tall and weighs around 160lbs (73kgs). As to his clothing style, he likes wearing folk-themed suits and clothes made of faux leather.
Net worth and salary
As of 2020, Joey’s net worth is estimated to be around $200,000. He has several sources of stable income, which are his theatre performances, television appearances and his music band “The Amazing Devil”.
