Critical Role’s Voice Cast Talk the Joys of Adapting Their Own Work

At New York Comic-Con 2021, the primary footage of Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina received its grand animated debut. Based on the internet sequence the place voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons, the cartoon rapidly took form after a record-breaking Kickstarter, and Amazon later picked it up for 2 seasons. As with every little thing they do, the forged of the present made it clear that this solely occurred due to their large fanbase. “This is our show, in every sense of the word,” mentioned Travis Willingham (voice of goliath brute Grog Strongjaw) on the NYCC panel.

It’s an fascinating sensation for the forged, who’ve all spent their careers as characters from different properties. Laura Bailey and Willingham have spent years as Marvel characters Black Widow and Thor, you’ve heard Matthew Mercer as Overwatch’s cowboy McCree, and avid gamers are intimately aware of Ashley Johnson as Last of Us’ zombie killer Ellie. So the possibility to adapt their very own materials was one thing of a tradition shock, for positive. “None of us at any point have taken this for granted,” mentioned Johnson (gnome cleric Pike). Liam O’Brien (half-elf rogue Vax’ildan) added that there’s a particular quantity of funding in being his personal man. “You can’t really beat digging your fingers into your own character, and I feel more invested than I’ve been in anything I’ve been a part of.”

Fans of Critical Role can be delighted that the sequence is beginning off with the Briarwood arc of the primary marketing campaign, thought to be when the present finds its footing. In it, the adventuring social gathering generally known as Vox Machina helps their inventor Percy (voiced by Talisen Jaffe) search out the vampires who slaughtered his household and rapidly get in over their heads. (Hot vampires, because the forged was fast to level out upon seeing an image of Silas Briarwood, voiced by Dungeon Master Mercer.) “When we got to the Briarwood arc,” defined Sam Riegel (gnome bard Scanlan), “it clicked for all of us that we’re telling a real story here… At least for me, it’s the first time that it felt like art.” Bailey (half-elf archer Vex’ahlia) felt that the Briarwood arc is the place character relationships really took form past the forged messing round and laughing at their very own idiocy.

Adapting something is difficult, however Critical Role is a complete totally different beast. The Vox marketing campaign is a whole bunch of hours of content material, and because the marketing campaign led to 2017, the forged has been sporadically voicing their heroes on and off for one-shots. Choosing what moments to usher in the marketing campaign wasn’t straightforward; Bailey defined that the forged was requested about favourite moments they wished to transition to animation. Or as Marisha Ray (druid Keyleth) tells it: “The first day in the writers’ room was basically the writers interviewing us as our characters…It was just us trying to explain our characters.” But the transition, in keeping with Jaffe, was “better than I imagined.” If you’re a fan of the Vox marketing campaign, you possible know what he’s speaking about.

Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina hits Amazon on February 4, 2022.