We sit with some of the main cast of The Legend of Vox Machina to discuss how close they’ve grown to their characters over the years since they first started this journey all the way back with a D&D campaign.
Audio transcription
“Guys, we’re at season four now.
I don’t want to scare you with any statistics, but this is more than a decade since Vox Machina has made its debut with the world.“
“How do you think your bond with the characters that you’ve made, and I guess for you, Matt, as well, the world that you’ve made, has developed as we’re moving into sort of the penultimate season, the near climax of this, like, epic journey that you’re going through for the second time.“
“God, we’re old.
I was going to say, don’t scare us with it.
We feel it every morning.
Yeah.
But it’s going to remind us.“
“We think about this every moment.
Yeah.
Or any time a fan is like, I’ve been watching you since middle school, and you’re like, ah.“
“Yeah, I wouldn’t say how old I was when I started.
Don’t.
Yeah.
No, I think it’s a very emotional journey.
You know, we’re very lucky as performers and actors.“
“There’s not a lot of instances of actors getting to be with characters for so long.
And in a lot of ways, we’re kind of growing up with them, you know, as we’re changing so are our characters.“
“And it’s kind of a very beautiful thing.
Yeah.
It’s a wild, unexpected scenario.
And to be living these characters for so long, but have characters that were born from us.“
“You know what I mean?
Each of these are a piece of us that we got to shape and form and try out and learn from.
These stories shaped us beyond just, they’re not just performances you give.“
“We lived through them for these decade plus that we’ve been doing it.
And it’s an honor.
For me, this world has been my gift to my players.
It’s been my favorite thing to create for my friends.“
“And now we get to share that with so many more people and build it and bring it to life with so many more people.
I never could have anticipated this.
And it’s one of my life’s greatest honors.“
“And I still pinch myself.
Yeah.
And something, I guess, I’m a D&D player myself.
I’m a DM myself.
And I can’t imagine sort of having that.“
“Thank you.
Can’t imagine having that sort of, that ownership, I guess, you have of the things that you create and passed on.
But I guess we’re in season four now.“
“You kind of get used to that as well.
But what was the process like, I guess, in sort of letting other people take the reins in some way, but also you’ve still got the performance in that aspect?
I mean, we were very lucky that our partners at Prime Video came at us in the very beginning of this as a partnership, a collaboration.“
“They’ve entrusted us with the creative vision, brought their perspective and notes on places where we very much could have used them.
And we’ve still been guiding this ship every step of the way, you know?
So to a degree, it’s been wonderful to not have to give up our creative heart behind all this, but instead get to allow other people bring their hearts into it.“
“And knowing very well that one of the best things about adaptation is how it changes for the better within the medium, getting to express it in animation and in do-so, revisit these stories and plus them up in incredible ways and do so with some of the most talented people in the animation industry abound.“
“So from my perspective, it’s been incredible in ways that I can’t express.
Yeah, this is something that’s obviously been very collaborative for you guys since day one.“
“How’s the collaboration experience of the show compared to everyone around at a D&D table?
Because I imagine it’s different recording sessions and things like that.
But, you know, as we know right now, you guys are all still clearly, you know, very much together on this thing.“
“You know, we’ve… Oh, go, please.
No, go on.
I was going to say, we very successfully sort of pulled from our livestream all around a table routes.“
“And we, outside of COVID, we required that we would all be in the same room recording at the same time.
Even when we were, you know, remotely situated, we’d all be on one giant recording session just so that we could hear each other, respond to each other, make sure that anything that came up in the moment got to rise to the top and at least be, you know, considered.“
“But that’s the genesis of all this, is that, you know, we record together, we record the other characters, the secondary characters, the NPCs, the villains, anybody that hasn’t had a chance to record yet, we get to take a crack at doing crazy voices.“
“Matt will still do a ton of characters that we mean to cast, but because he does too damn good of a job, it survives and makes it all the way through.
And he’s like, I wasn’t meaning for that to be a final performance.“
“And we’re like, too bad, you’re good.
It’s going in.
And that’s how it should be.
So it’s best idea and best performance wins.“
“And that’s what we love.
Yeah, and I was going to say, like, I feel like I have to shout out the writers.
And, you know, sometimes, you know, if you’re ever too close to a puzzle and then some random person walks into a room and they’re like, yeah, that goes there.“
“And you’re like, ah! Having that fresh perspective is so incredible.
I mean, like, even having to shout out one of our lead writers, Frank Agnoza, there is no bigger Tarian fan than Frank Agnoza.“
“And him coming in as this, like, fresh voice and hearing new ideas and things that we probably wouldn’t have thought about because we’re so close to the subject matter.“
“So it’s still very much collaborative.
As Travis said, it still embraces that spirit.
So back in the original campaign, there’s obviously, the DM’s the only guy who really knows what’s coming.“
“And even then, you’re reacting to how players react.
But this is season four now.
I won’t spoil anything, but we do get into some heavy stuff.“
“And towards, I will say at least, is there a difference in the performance from, I guess it’s more of a performance now that was just a general reaction, but knowing that context, what can you add as you go into sort of the heavier stuff, I guess, into season four?
Ashley.“
“Sorry, it’s real hypothetically.
I mean, I don’t even really know how to answer that question.
It’s okay, it’s okay.
We can move on.“
“I mean, I don’t know.
I have so many thoughts that come up, but obviously at the table, there’s…
Scenes are gonna be different in the animated series because we can explore some of those emotions a little bit more than we did at the table, which you definitely see that in this season, at least in terms of Pike’s journey and what she goes through.“
“I don’t know.
I think a good way to say it is that even with an established fan base that knows what happened in the live stream of Vox Machina, our job is to try and make some twists and turns so that there are new things and things that will unsettle those expectations and still arrive with a satisfying bite at the apple once the season is over with.“
“We are guilty of being quite fond of cliffhangers, so I’m sure there’s no danger of that happening, but we certainly want to tee up the end game of this campaign, and I think everything will be just fine.“
“It’ll be fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why not?
Yeah.
Friendship, right?
Friendship.“
“I guess, yeah.
Usually works, something like that.
I guess one final thing then, as we go, as you say, season five is going to be where everything’s going to be fine and nothing’s going to go badly at all, but we know that the story, well, live stream fans, without spoiling anything, will know that there’s at least some elements of the Vox Machina story that does continue in that aspect.“
“Are there any, or would you jump, I guess, at the chance to sort of revisit those in maybe like special episodes, things like that?
Have you talked about that yet?
Is that something you’d consider?
If it was up to us, I think we would make an animated version of every single thing that we’ve ever done.“
“We also are big anime fans.
We can animate this.
So if we could make some OVAs or some animated music videos.
Oh my God, yes.“
“Yes, 100%.
No plans currently, but you never know.
Yeah.
You never know.“