The voice actors who comprise The Legend of Vox Machina cast are more than a group of colleagues and workmates.
They are good friends who have spent more than a decade together, sharing their lives, meeting regularly to adventure through tabletop roleplaying campaigns, and expanding their fun pastime into a live-action streaming phenomenon, a successful company and studio, and two animated series.
Speaking with the cast in anticipation of the June 3 premiere of The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 was a truly delightful interview experience, like being plunked into an energetic collective of geeky joy.
The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4
Prime Video sets up The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 as taking place a year after the concluding events of the third season, when the team members went their separate ways.
After a year, a new danger arises: an old evil introduced in The Legend of Vox Machina Season 1 and teased in the final scene of Season 3 — The Whispered One.
However, the real challenge in Season 4 is reuniting the team after they’ve been apart for so long, have lost touch, and have had adventures on their own.
Speaking via Zoom with Laura Bailey (Vex), Liam O’Brien (Vax), Sam Riegel (Scanlan), and Taliesen Jaffe (Percy) during the first part of the Vox Machina Press Day, we kicked off with how they approached the awkwardness of coming together again.
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Season 4’s theme is one of “Getting the Band Back Together Again,” but it proves more complicated than one would expect. What do you think were the obstacles that the team faced?
Taliesen Jaffe: For the characters, it’s leaving school. It’s leaving high school or college. It’s been a year. You have your own life. You have your own relationships. You’re a slightly different person just naturally.
And so the things that bound you to other people have shifted, even if you weren’t there for it, and your priorities have shifted inevitably. Will it all mesh again? It might mesh in a different way. Oof…
Laura Bailey: And then wondering if the people that are important to you… Are you still as important to them? You don’t want to bother them too much.
It ends up leading to this need for secrecy that everybody has between each other, and so there are so many things to be revealed that we are afraid to or don’t want to bother people with.
Liam O’Brien: They might all be sharing a similar urge to be like, “I’m the same person I always was. We’re cool, right?” when really none of them are the same person they were.
Sam Riegel: I think distance — literal, physical distance — is a huge issue at the beginning of this season.
For the first time in Vox Machina, in the series, the members of the group are scattered around the world, around the globe, some of them out of communication entirely.
Just simply getting them all back into one place is going to take several episodes. And when they finally meet up again, they’ve all changed, and so the dynamic is totally different. They have to relearn how to be a team.
Translating Campaign to Camera
For viewers who didn’t watch this season’s plot unfold on Critical Role, how did the gap year and physical separation work in the campaign?
LB: That’s one of the things that shifted within the campaign. Did we have a break? There was a moment where Matt [Mercer] said, “There’s going to be an amount of time that’s passing now.” [everyone nods, agreeing]
LO: Yeah, there was a year, in-game.
SR: Yeah, we did a year break, and we all got to decide what we went off to do. I think that’s when you [Laura] made your armor?
LB: Well, yeah.
SR: And other stuff. [grins knowingly]
LB: There were lots of things that happened. It’s funny cause we did it in the animated series, and I was like, “Was this… wait a minute, did we do this at the full table, or was this just a one-on-one session that I had with Matt?” Thinking about some of those moments was kind of fun.
TJ: I think it was one-on-one. We all had that “Where have we been? What are we doing?” [session].
Vox Machina’s Hunka Burnin’ Love
In terms of dealing with trauma individually, Sam, can you speak to Scanlan’s Elvis Era?
SR: [laughs] Time passed, and Scanlan went off to become a touring musician. Sometimes, when you are just in a bar every night performing for a year, you put on a little bit of a gut.
Early on in the designing phase for Season 4, we always ask, “What do we want to change in the characters?” Vex got some new upgrades. Keyleth got some upgrades.
And we figured what better way to show that Scanlan was both enjoying his life, but also maybe indulging too much, than by giving him a little bit of Later-Era-Elvis vibes. He wears the weight well, I think.
A new character introduced in Season 4 is Taryon Darrington. I believe, Sam, that he was your character in the campaign. Is that correct?
SR: In the campaign, Scanlan goes away for a while, and I still wanted to play with my friends, so Matt was kind enough to let me play Taryon. I got to be Taryon for about 30 episodes of main campaigning. Maybe less. It was from Episode 85 to 110, so yeah, maybe less.
I really loved playing him. I wish that he had more to do in the first campaign, but now he gets to come back and be a main character in Season 4 of The Legend of Vox Machina!
And what better person to play him than brilliant comedian, actor, and singer Wayne Brady, who brought so much love and life to the character and made us all laugh hysterically and, I think, will make people fall in love with this weird new character.
Double the Love
Laura and Liam, it’s one thing for the team to be separated, but the twins have been apart for a year. What was it like bringing them together again?
LB: [vocalizes a meaningful, sad grunt]
LO: Well, we love moving the chess pieces around in this long-form story we have. They’ve both gone off to become their own people and figure themselves out more with their new partners in life.
The fun of the playing of it was having them come back and try to re-figure out their relationship.
Obviously, they still love each other very much, but like we said earlier, they’re probably wondering maybe their sibling is better off where they are, maybe they’re more content where they are.
“Do you miss me like I miss you? Check this box if you do.”
LB: “Yes” or “Yes.”
And then getting the fun reveals where they’re finally able to let each other know what they’ve been doing, really, and how they are, really, leads to some really magical moments.
Happy Endings Aren’t Everything
Taliesen, Percy addresses some of his older traumas. Can you speak to him figuring himself out? When he recognizes what he’s been carrying all this time?
TJ: That recognition is Percy’s entire story arc — even in the original season. It’s “What is wrong with me?”
“Oh, I need therapy.” “I need therapy” took years and many, many hours of gameplay to figure out.
He’s trying the brand new thing to see if that can help him feel better, which is happiness and the life he always wanted, cause clearly, that’ll fix everything.
It’s delightful for him to now have something to lose. You can make stupid choices when the only thing that’s really gonna go wrong is you. Now, there’s a life that he wants. Now that he got the thing, his wish was granted.
But there’s all of this just looming on the outside that has not been dealt with.”
In the second part of the Vox Machina Press Day, we chatted with Travis Willingham (Grog), Marisha Ray (Keyleth), and Ashley Johnson (Pike) about their characters’ growth and change in Season 4.
The Cleric’s Tale
Ashley, Pike walks a path unlike anything she’s dealt with before. How did you prepare yourself for taking that on?
Ashley Johnson: Ooooh, when we were playing through the campaign, playing all of our stories together, Pike has always had a crisis of faith. She’s been somewhat of a devoted follower cause she likes to do some “bad” stuff too, and have a little fun.
This season, for sure, it all reaches a pinnacle for her of having to make some pretty strong, scary, and tough choices.
Being able to write it out in a season and being able to tell this story throughout the source of these episodes in Season 4 just fleshed out Pike’s character so much more than we’ve been able to do. Even in the campaigns.
Getting to see that side of her and dealing with that particular relationship of her and Everlight, what that faith means, and what that means for her in her future, and what that means for her in her friendships and her relationships with her family and her friends.
It’s intense! It’s a very intense time for Pike, and I was ready for it!
Keyleth’s Final Ashari
Marisha, Keyleth takes on some huge challenges in Season 4. Did you feel that she was ready for them?
Marisha Ray: Both in the original campaign and in the season, you’re really seeing the Water Ashari trial and the battle with the kraken as the final pendulum swing into her stepping up and embracing her path as a leader for not just the Ashari, but as a figurehead in Exandria.
I really love the way it was interpreted as, “I am not going to adhere to your dumb rules if it means sacrificing or hurting others or accepting that this is the only path, and there can’t be a better one.”
It’s a really great moment. Even though she has completed her Ashari, it is the end of one chapter and symbolizes the beginning of another in this new path for her and her journey.
With the new status, power, and responsibility Keyleth takes on, she also has a lot more to lose. How does that factor into her development as a character?
MR: Oh, yeah! Even in the booth and, of course, working with Mary Elizabeth [McGlynn, voice director for The Legend of Vox Machina], she was always very much a slow burn character, both in the animated series and the campaign.
We tried to take a lot of great care that — even though she has matured and is stepping into this new role as the leader of her people — we didn’t want to lose what makes Keyleth Keyleth.
She is still a little awkward, has her insecurities and self-doubt, just like everybody, but we really wanted to embrace that and endear her to the audience, so she could be a leader more leaders should be like.
But, yeah, she still has her insecurities of letting people down, especially Vox Machina and the love of her life, Vax. She still has that self-doubt.
The Voice of Clarity
Travis, I love Grog. He sees things so clearly. When you think about Grog’s motivations and reasoning, what stands out for you?
Travis Willingham: Part of what makes Grog so wonderful to play is that he’s not complicated. It’s very, very simple. What you see is what you get. Especially when it comes to Pike, he’s really great at reminding not just himself, but also her, how beautiful what they have already really is.
They’ve both come from places of pain. Grog’s come from an upbringing that REALLY sucked. Really broken “family” dynamic, if you wanna call it that.
And with Pike and with Wilhand, he’s found the best family he could’ve ever hoped for and it’s allowed him to grow his heart, to grow his mind, and it’s provided an incredibly safe space that he never had.
What Drives Grog
He’s dedicated himself to making sure that Pike always feels that with him. That if the world is upside down, if there are dragons attacking, no matter what’s happening, that she will always be safe as long as Grog is around.
[Ashley interjects a tearful, tender, “Boo-hoo” here, wipes a tear from her eye.]
I think that’s a beautiful way of rewarding her friendship because it takes a lot to love somebody like Grog and be accepting of everything with Grog.
I assume all of the doorjambs in the Wilhand household are just smashed from his forehead repeatedly busting through them, smashing chairs, and doing all sorts of stuff.
When things feel the most chaotic and weighty and turbulent, he’s really good about just slowing things down, and saying, “Like, hey, [switches to Grog’s voice] it’s just us. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Right? Sometimes, that’s all you really need. To have a second to reset, to be able to approach whatever comes next.
And there you have it, Fanatics, straight from Grog’s IRL mouth. Take a second to reset because what comes next is a season of The Legend of Vox Machina like you’ve never seen.
How will the team find their rhythm again? Who will have the hardest time? Who will be most changed by it all? Hit our comments section with your thoughts and theories on Season 4.
The 12-episode The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 premieres June 3 on Prime Video with three episodes. Batches of three new episodes drop each Wednesday throughout June.
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