There’s a lot happening in the first three episodes of the new season of The Legend of Vox Machina: duplicitous dragons, reluctant family reunions, old enemies reappearing, and an unexpected romp to a totally different country, among other things.
But amid the chase scenes, character introductions (and reintroductions), and heist planning, there’s one small little cameo that the Critical Role cast wants to point out. It happens early in the second episode, where gentle giant Grog (Travis Willingham) plays with some little kids and manages to find out some crucial information from them.
On the surface, it’s a cute interaction. But Sam Riegal, the voice of bard Scanlan, mentions that there’s a tiny casting choice that makes it particularly memorable: “The young child of Travis and Laura [Bailey] is the voice of the kid in the scene.”
“It’s so great,” adds Bailey.
“In fact […] Laura plays the other kid,” Riegal recounts. “So it’s Travis, Laura, and their son all in a scene together, which is pretty cool.”
In addition to the main roles, which are all reprised by the Critical Role cast, The Legend of Vox Machina boasts some notable voice actors, like Stephanie Beatriz, Cree Summer, and the late Lance Reddick (as well as Matt Mercer playing various NPC roles). But this tiny background child might be the best one. And it’s one little way that the cast shape the show.
Though all of the Critical Role cast are executive producers on the show, not all of them write for it. Willingham and Riegal both wrote episodes for last season, with Marisha Ray and Liam O’Brien joining this season. But even so, they’re all active participants in the writer’s room from the beginning.
“We start every season being like, These are the moments that it would be a dream to hit — with acknowledgement that we might not get there, but trying to honor a lot from the campaign as much possible,” explains Ray. “I do feel like it’s gotten smoother [in later seasons]. It’s much more seamless. The writers that we work with, the artists as well, they’re getting to know these characters as deeply as we have at that moment. The process has become a lot more of a well-oiled machine.”
The first three episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina are available to stream on Prime Video now, with new episodes dropping on Thursdays.
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