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<\/p>\nThe Critical Role team has been living inside the mythical realm of Exandria for over a decade. What began as a Dungeons & Dragons actual-play stream populated by well-known voice actors has become one of the dominant forces in contemporary D&D, leading to multiple spin-offs\u2014like the animated Prime Video series The Legend Of Vox Machina, which returns for its fourth season on Prime Video Wednesday, June 3. Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer and the cast who play the show\u2019s eponymous party\u2014Marisha Ray, Liam O\u2019Brien, Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Travis Willingham, and Sam Riegel\u2014know their characters like the back of their hands. But, as they told The A.V. Club ahead of the season premiere, knowing and loving something doesn\u2019t keep it from being challenging, or from presenting entirely new hurdles when a story that was improvised around a table is adapted into a scripted TV series.<\/p>\n
With a coy smile, Riegel remarked on one such challenge: \u201cNot being in some episodes was very challenging for me, to my ego, and also a challenge to the audience, really, \u2019cause I\u2019m why they keep coming back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s right, of course: his lewd jokes and sly earnestness have made Riegel\u2019s character, the gnome bard Scanlan Shorthalt, a fan favorite. And he\u2019s also right about the make-up of season four. With the team split off all across the continent on their respective journeys, not every episode features every character.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur animators were very happy about that,\u201d Bailey said with a laugh. Background characters and fantasy worlds are one thing, but having seven main characters is a lot of detail\u2014especially considering the intricate style that Titmouse uses for The Legend Of Vox Machina and the animated version of Critical Role\u2019s second campaign, The Mighty Nein.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vox Machina is eventually reunited in season four, but, as Riegel mentioned, it\u2019s still hard for the characters to be apart. Particularly when it comes to twins Vex\u2019ahlia and Vax\u2019ildan, the latter played by O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Vex, it\u2019s an interesting thing to be separate from Vax and to have an entire sort of life for a year without him and to be content in that, but also to miss him so dearly,\u201d Bailey explained. \u201cI think there was an interesting dynamic with them coming back together and having a lot of secrets from each other and not knowing how to share them again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vex has this in common with her twin brother. However, Vax\u2019s pact with the Matron of Death complicates things even further. They were able to resurrect Percy when he died in the third season, but the human gunslinger\u2019s revival came at a cost. The Matron left Vax with a blight, and it hasn\u2019t improved in the year since the team parted ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien reflected on where the new season finds Vax, who\u2019s been adventuring alongside and deepening his relationship with the half-elf druid Keyleth and dealing with the consequences of the blight. \u201cHe\u2019s trying to be there to support and do the things required of him despite how unsure he feels with everything going on,\u201d O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnsure\u201d could be the theme of the entire series. It certainly applies to season four: With the Chroma Conclave defeated, the team faces a new, unknown foe that threatens to be their greatest challenge yet. Though thematic weight and formidable adversaries will never stop this band of assholes from having a few laughs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\ufeff<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love trying to find levity in this season, which gets so heavy,\u201d O\u2019Brien explained. They\u2019ve hit the mother lode with one of the newest additions to Vox Machina: Taryon Darrington, played by improviser extraordinaire Wayne Brady. Taryon, who was played by Riegel in the original campaign, is a lovable and frequently oblivious upstart who would be unbearably annoying without the impeccable comedic timing Brady and Riegel have each brought to the role. He manages to get on the nerves of every member of the party\u2014Percy most of all, who\u2019s particularly irked by the newcomer\u2019s enthusiasm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The actor playing Percy, however, felt differently. Jaffe said he had to make sure that it didn\u2019t sound like he was falling in love with Taryon too quickly. \u201cThere comes a point where I\u2019m like \u2018Wow, I just really have to keep trying to be irritated by this lovable scamp.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWayne Brady just runs away with the season,\u201d Willingham agreed. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know if anybody could hold a candle to the immaculate Sam Riegel, but Jesus H. Macy, Wayne came in and said \u2018hold my beer.\u2019 He\u2019s been an absolute phenom.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re somehow underselling how funny Brady is as Taryon. What is undoubtedly the heaviest stretch of The Legend Of Vox Machina to date also had me belly laughing more than any prior season. Brady credits his performance, and his involvement in the show, entirely to Riegel, who was his voice coach for Disney\u2019s Sophia The First. The self-proclaimed \u201c huge animation, sci-fi, fantasy nerd boy,\u201d\u00a0 recalled locking into The Legend Of Vox Machina\u2019s universe immediately, and joked that he was \u201cincredibly jealous\u201d that he wasn\u2019t on the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo a couple of years later, Sam reaches out to me and says \u2018Wayne, I\u2019ve got this character and his name is Taryon Darrington,\u2019\u201d Brady said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like \u2018Yes. When do you want me there? When can I start? Let\u2019s go.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the coolest thing to be asked to be part of these guys, because I look at Critical Role as an improvisation troupe that just happens to play D&D. We\u2019re all in the same tribe of musicians and actors and improvisers. We come from the same place. So to play make believe in their world with a character that Sam had already created, and that I was being blessed with and told just to do my thing was the best of both worlds. You can always get a job, but you don\u2019t always get an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the time that\u2019s passed between the events of seasons three and four, the dynamics within Vox Machina would\u2019ve shifted with or without Taryon tagging along. Willingham called it \u201ca real delight and also a struggle to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kind of had to remind ourselves that it can\u2019t always be the best of vibes,\u201d he said. \u201cThere has to be some of that tension in the different pursuits that they\u2019ve taken in the time spent between seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image: Prime Video<\/p>\n
For Keyleth, that time was spent in the most loving and challenging year of her life. She has Vax fiercely backing her up, but she also has the seemingly impossible task of completing the odyssey her people call Aramente. The final trial that the half-elf faces in season four wasn\u2019t just a challenge for the character, but for Ray herself as a performer. She recalled how this portion of the original campaign played out during a live episode of Critical Role, which amplified the stress levels of what Ray described as a \u201creally bad day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked out of the sound stage and immediately burst into tears,\u201d Ray said. \u201cGoing back and revisiting that and encapsulating just how stressful the whole challenge was, it\u2019s raw.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson, meanwhile, was experiencing events she\u2019d missed the first time around. Her role on the NBC drama Blindspot coincided with the original campaign, so she couldn\u2019t be around to play the gnome cleric Pike as much as she wanted to. Johnson said it was important for her to do justice to Pike\u2019s story because she was gone for so long.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got to tell this story about her crisis of faith and this whole sort of emotional journey that she\u2019s on,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was almost better in a way than what we were able to in the campaign because I wasn\u2019t here all the time. So being in the booth and having to be very serious and emotional and yell at my friends, that\u2019s not fun. But, you know, we work it out!\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether or not it does work out, we have more Pikey, and that\u2019s a net win. What makes this new version of the story so fun is that while the Critical Role team wants to honor the original campaign and the Critters who have been with them from the beginning, they\u2019ve always made sure that The Legend Of Vox Machina stands entirely on its own, without depending on a decade\u2019s worth of Critical Role lore. For Mercer, the challenge and the joy of season four was about the adaptation of it all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese reveals that were once communal, we now get to have [the characters] meet them through different perspectives and see how that kind of sends its own bolt of electricity through the rest of the party as they\u2019re starting to reform. For me, one of the exciting challenges was seeing how we could layer in the fractured now of Vox Machina while still having these beats hit even more intensely than before and use that as an anchor to bring them all together. It was a fun journey to develop that version of this story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Critical Role team has been living inside the mythical realm of Exandria for over a decade. What…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-459836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}