This week we talk Avatarverse, voice acting and directing, and more with Critical Role’s Sam Riegel! Sam sits down with Janet and Dante to talk not just about what makes "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and "The Legend of Korra" so special to Sam and his kids, but also what makes a great voice actor and how he approaches voice directing. From his early friendship with Janet through the sketch comedy world to the roleplaying empire he and his Critical Role mates have built with an amazing fandom, there’s a lot to learn in this ep… including what an “infinite monkey" is!
Hello, friends, benders and non benders alike. Welcome to Braving the Elements, Nickelodeon's podcast about all things Avatar Verse. I'm Janet Varney and I'm Dante Bosco, and today we're gonna be talking to someone from another very beloved world, multiple worlds, actually lots of crossover in the Avatar fandom with this other thing we're talking about. That's right, buddy, But this person, for some reason, we're refusing your name even though it's in the episode title. Uh. This person has also found himself playing let me say it this way, playing a critical role behind the scenes of animation, working not just as a voice actor but also as a voice director to make wonderful shows. Wow. Wow, Well, like you're so cover for using the words critical role, Janet, Well, instead of answering that, I'm gonna welcome a very special guest this week, Sam OReGO. Welcome to show. Say I'm going to go along. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Janet. That was incredibly impressive. I don't know, that's got to have been used twenty zillion first time. That's it. That's the first one. Nice, try but up your game for the next one. We'll do, We'll do. Uh well, we are so excited to have you on the show because, Um, if there's one crossover, I would say like maybe Star Wars as well, But I feel like the consistency of crossover of fandom with Avatar fans that we meet at cons and them also loving Critical Role is like, um, there's just a lot of love for both worlds in the hearts and minds of who seemed to love the Avatar Verse. So it seemed like such a no brainer to bring you in because we also have this great interest from our listeners and from fans of the Avatar Verse about sort of all aspects of making great animation, and you sort of have a hand now and like almost every part of it. I mean, I'm not sure if you're like drawing individual cells or like sitting on a computer uh from more far away making making pictures. But aside from that, I feel like you super have done everything else. I've been very lucky to um to be part of making animation for many years now as a voice director or casting director, sometimes as a voice actor like like you guys, but now through Critical Role. Also we make our own cartoon called The Legend Vox Makina, on which I'm an executive producer and writer and I also direct some of the voices. And you're totally right. It's I've gotten to really sink my teeth into all things animation. And yeah, I think that our fan communities really do have a lot of overlap because, um, weirdly, I feel like the critical role Verse Verse and the Avatar are they're very similar. I mean, like they're well, our show is possibly more adult, but it's not like yours is just for kids. Like it's very adult storytelling, very sophisticated and mature themes and stuff like that, even if it's not as much cursing as we do. But like I think our stories and our show is sort of a slightly kid friendly adult show, uh and and yours is a very adult friendly kids show or something something. They're both sort of in the in the liminal space in between. Um, and they're both filled with great characters and amazing magics and such cool twists and turns, and and of course fans of one would be fans of the other. It makes total sense. This is especially pleasing to me because Dante asks Sam and I how we know each other and how long we've known each other? Yeah? And Varney, how how do you know each other? How long have you known each other? How did this get started? What's going on? What a good question, Dante? You really up in your game? We met, boy. I probably get the year wrong, but it was. Was it the two thousand and three Sketch Sketch Fest? Nailed? It nailed? The year nailed years ago? Yeah? Oh my goodness, that was years ago, two thousand three. Oh no, Yeah. I came in as a performer. Uh. And Varney over here and her cohorts invited me and my um my sketch comedy partner Rob Blatt to come to our sketch comedy show at San Francisco, and man, it was so great. It was probably the highlight of our sketch comedy careers. And so many cool people were there, and uh and we we hung out with you guys, and I just remember we all hung out in a hotel room one night, being all dorky and fun and it was. It was such a great time. And we've remained friends ever since. And I've gotten to work with Janet and the Voiceover World a little bit, and I certainly have watched from afar as you've become a mega mega star. Okay, that was directed to actually towards you, Dante. What was the name of the sketch the Sketch group, and where we're all hailing from. We we started as the Infinite Monkeys, okay, but then we changed our name to Regal and Black because that seemed that seemed somehow even less appealing. I've infinite monkeys. We've all heard the Infinite Monkeys typewriter make amazing stuff. Sure, but then we got it. We we started to overthink it and we were like monkeys. It seems like a hacky comedy thing. And and then there's only two of us. It doesn't make any sense. They were not infinite. How many monkeys are the infinite monkeys? Too infinite monkeys half infinite each table didn't make sense to choose your name to the finite monkeys. That also didn't really work. Two monkeys just seemed like a weird sequel to two monkeys is not a good time to seven. And we guys coming out of l A. Or we just come of Chicago, or we came out of New York. We did a citizens Brigade stuff in New York before there was even an Upright Citizens Brigade theater in l A. And after doing the sketch comedy and improv scene for a while, we came to l A to seek our our fame and fortune as as hot comedy writers. Infinite Monkeys are coming to town. Watch out. Here come the infinite Monkeys and the infinite possibilities. Yes, yes, it turns out there was only two possibilities. There was only two and it was success or failure, and we fail. Yeah, total failure. Donna tell one, I don't know. He's also Donna Tello on the Teenage Meeting Nina, which happened to be actually saying my favorite turtle. Oh mine too? Yeah, there I go. How is life as a turtle? I mean that's its own kind of you know. I think it was one of my favorite roles I've ever played. Uh Big fans since I was a kid, always loved Donna Tello. He was my favorite. I actually when I got cast in it. I won't bore the fans with boring behind the scenes stuff, but I got cast as Michaelangelo stuff. How dare you you got cast Mike and the guy he ended up playing Michael Ancho. He got cast as done, and we recorded the pilot episode with those roles, and when they played it all back, they were like, it doesn't sound it's just not right. Something's not right about it. And we thought we were for sure going to get fired and replaced, because that's what happens in this business. But instead someone was like, how about this just switch? And so we switched roles and it was like magic. It was a miracle. It was. It was perfect, and I was so glad to play to keep my job, but also so I'm happy because I really did, like I like to tell him better than my Glantello was a better fit. People love those stories. I love when I see movies and on TV shows and like you find out the little trivia bit that like two people switched roles. I absolutely love that. There's a bunch of stuff that we could name another one, uh, that you were very well known for him. The video game side is Phoenix right in the game series. I don't mind if I do love the name Phoenix. Is this show just you guys making me feel good? Well, we actually have the surprise for you the podcast that video game come out here? Please? Yeah? I got to play, uh, and I still do occasionally. I feel like I just recorded him a few months ago. I get to play Phoenix, right, who is an ace attorney for these weird video games and some some anime shows that that feature him. The thing about the video games is he only ever says like ten things, so the recording sessions are very very short. He just has to say objection, hold it, uh, like one or two other things? And do you ever get to say you're on or in an exasperated tone? I should write that in the Yeah. No, it's been fun playing that role as well. And um and I can't wait to hear how you're gonna make me feel good next, Janet, Well, I'm gonna pass the torch to Dante. I had it. I've had it making you feel good. I want to talk about the amazing Critical Role this. I feel like you guys created a new genre of storytelling. Of course, a lot of fans out there of Critical Role. For people that don't know what Critical Role is, you want to kind of explain the whole talk about its inception as part of the the journey. Yeah, so, Critical Role is a is a live play like role playing game show that me and my friends play. We played Dungeons and Dragons on our on our Twitch channel every Thursday night at seven pm um Twitch dot tv slash corect role. But the genesis of it was me and my voiceover actor friends all got together for somebody's birthday, for Liam O'Brien's birthday, and he wanted to do something weird and fun for his birthday, so he said, let's all get together and play D and D. And we just roped in some random voiceover friends and started to play. And many of us, like myself, had never played before, had never played any role playing game. Um, yeah I was. I was not a very good nerd um. But when we were finished playing, we thought that was it and we would go about our merry ways and our merry lives. But then we all started texting each other saying, like, dude, that was really fun. Can we do that again sometime? And it just became a thing that we would that we would do sort of monthly at each other's houses, until one day, Felicia Day, a super talented actor performer nerd queen, asked us to do it if we could play our game live on on her Twitch channel, and we said, no, that's a horrible idea, but we did it anyway, and we thought it would be horribly boring to watch random Josh Moo's play Make Them Ups for four hours, unedited around a table, But we found that people really got into the stories and the characters, and they really enjoyed seeing a group of friends together at a table who truly we're just trying to crack each other up and and loving each other. And it turned into this thing where we have an amazing fan community like you guys do, and it has afforded us the opportunities to travel the world and meet a lot of fans and do other things like make comic books and board games and novels. And now we get to make We take the characters and world of our story and we've made this animated series and it's so phnomenal. It's a wild thing that we never planned. But Infinite Monkeys never knew. This was part of the infinite possibilities of what was going to happen in this town. But nonetheless, guess what Infinite Monkeys things happen. It's true, but we've had a blast, and it's so great to be able to go to work every week with my friends and just make up stuff together. That's great. You are the perfect person for us to give as an example when we are doing panels at cons And I'm sure you get asked this all the time too, and we'll talk more about kind of voice over and all of that and a little bit. But um, you know, so often when people ask about getting started in acting or performing. Um, people today are both blessed with the Internet and things like YouTube and twitch and TikTok in all these places that you can be seen, but they're also um intimidated by it because they're such a mass of stuff to see. But I think the answer for us remains the same, which is like it doesn't matter how many avenues or how much competition there is, Like do stuff with your friends. Do stuff with your friends, find a group of people you love making stuff with an You are the perfect example to say, Look, these guys did it because they loved it, they love each other. All of that comes out in what you guys get to watch. And so it's such a great example to be able to give to people to say, you know, don't force it, don't you know, just find it and and enjoy it. Yeah, we never set out to do this. We never set out to make a company or make a show or any of that stuff. We just set out to hang out with each other and do something that we were passionate about at the time, which was learning how to play role playing games and learning how how it all worked. And um, yeah, that that's such great advice, Janet, just to to anyone who's trying to be a creative in any part of the industry. Um, not everything that you do has to be geared towards like making money or an agent to or getting a job. It can you should have passions also outside of that, and sometimes following those passions can lead you to unexpected places and infinite monkey possibilities, and you might end up where you wanted without even having tried to get there well first. And for almost like I got to talk about Liam having a very ambitious idea of inviting friends over for his birthday to play to play Dungeon's Dragons, and some people have not played it. You could have got roped into a three month game. It could have been a blissfully ignorant about your first campaign, could have been like guess what we're playing is for next two years? Like what what are we doing and too, you're talking about your friends, and uh, Sam's friends just happened to be Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Ashley Johnson. Who else is I mean, we got Matt Mercer Mercer Jaffee tell us that, I mean, these are his friends, you guys that he just happens to go and like this first game but done dragon with So that's also quite a bit of infinite monkey luck right there. That's pretty true. It's true. And at the time when we started this was like eight or nine years ago. Now, we were all just, um, like you guys have been in the past, you know, work a day voice actors, just trying to scrape out a living, um doing anime dubbing, or trying to get an agent and try to get a commercial job, radio commercial job, or just just anything. So um, it's not like we all got together and said like these will be the greatest voice actors in the history or anything. So we were just all like hungry young actors who who were trying to make our way in the world today. Um, And it worked out great and we've all been Another great thing about having you know, a group of friends going through this altogether is that we've been been able to support each other. It's not all easy, you know, you get setbacks and you get failures and mistakes that you make along the way, but it's so great to have a group of folks there to bail you out if you make a boo boo or something. So yeah, more good advice for folks listening is to just have have a few friends around that you can rely on when you make make a mistake, which you definitely will in life for sure. Well, and that takes us to kind of improv too, which is another thing that we often tell people is a great tool for if you're trying to get comfortable with yourself as a performer or as a voice actor, whatever the end goal is UM being in an environment where you know their structure to it. It's organized, and that's kind of I think like people who didn't do any RPGs UM before but who were performers and vice versa. And then obviously there's crossover between the two for people who you know like Patt Noswalt who's like always been patent and always been doing both and all of that, but that is another way that they sort of do like intermingle and when you start doing an RPG, if you're a performer, like, oh, like, I get it. This is like structured improv let's strategy and friends and laughs. And if you are an RPUG player and you, you know, try to perform, you're like, wait a minute, this is not dissimilar from the character I play in my absolutely true Yeah. Like I think all of us were, some more than others, but many of us left that first game just shocked at how many itches playing this game scratched for us. Like my desire to create a character, yes, check. My desire to do a funny voice check. My desire to sort of to be a writer check, because you're writing it as you go. My desire to be immersed in a long form story and and and the soap opera of it all check. Like all my creative desires were all sort of boiled and baked into one thing, combined with getting to to see your friends do the same thing and passing around really unhealthy snacks and uh and sodas while you do it. So it's it's so great. I really want to believe that there's there's such a parallel the between you starting to d M two being a dungeon master and voice directing. I wanted to be like they were happening on the Saint, like on parallel tracks, because that I could even squeeze that together and make it fit, like, Oh, suddenly, you're the one controlling the story in a whole new way and shaping the overall story that's being told in the adventure, not on like directing voice actor. What a good segue if it were true. I don't know that it was, but but it was. Yes, let's just say yes and UM, but yeah, I I have done a fair amount of voice directing UM since I got to l A and UM. That all mainly came about because I was started in l A doing a lot of voice over dubbing, anime dubbing, which is slightly different from how we record original animation. The pictures already done and for those listening, and then we take the Japanese or foreign language um DIO track and just sort of mute it and then replace it with an English audio track. But you have to match the lip flap and the lip movement, and it's part art because you're acting, but it's also kind of part math because you're just kind of counting how many times the lips move and making sure that your mouth is moving at the same speed and there's the same number of syllables and stuff. So me and Liam and other of our friends, Talison, we're doing a lot of anime dubbing, and the folks who produced those figured the best people to direct other actors. Where the folks who helped write the episodes, and me and Liam and Allison and other folks were adapting a lot of these anime scripts for English acting, and so it was just sort of a natural fit to have the people working on the scripts to direct the actors. And so I started doing that and I got better and better at it. One day, I just sort of happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I was auditioning at Disney for something as an actor, and I did this stupid thing whenever I whenever I directed. Since I was like in my twenties at the time, I wanted the actor to feel like I was in charge. So I wore a tie well because I didn't think they were going to take me seriously, this twenty six year old kid, Like, why would Gray Delisle listen to me? You know? Why would ye? So I would, so I would wear talking Michael J. Fox movie in the eighties, that's what it feels like. It's like, yeah, exactly. And so I wore tied every directing session. And I went to Disney on a lunch break to audition for something and they made fun of me and they were like, why are you wearing a tie? And I was like, well, I think the wreck to thing across town and this is what I wear when I direct. And they were like, I think somebody else had like quit or been fired that day. But when I said the word directing, everyone in the room their eyes lit up and they were like, wait a second. You're a voice director and I was like, yeah, I am. And they're like, after your session today, can you come back and talk to us? And yeah, and I was like sure I can, And so I went and I finished my session and I came back and I met with them and they were like, we are looking for someone actively right now who gets comedy and we need we need someone and are you available? And I was like yeah, my goodness, So had you not been wearing the tie to then BT s audibly enough that you explained why you're wearing the tie? Who knows. I'm sure it would have ended up doing it anyway, but that as eight a music story, yet another infinite monkey possibility going on? How telling Dante the name of the infinitely infinite regret? Correct answer, correct answer. Well, let's talk about the legend of box makina Um, your animated series. How does that happen? How do you guys? Like that was suggested from the outside because sometimes we don't really think that we can do with thing until someone goes, you know, what you should blah blah blah, or was it something that you internally as a group started talking about, like, wait a minute, what if this was a cartoon? I think it was mostly the latter because our show, our Twitch show, is very much theater of the mind. It's basically like a really, really, really long radio play where Matt our dungeon Master. He describes what's happening with very visceral language and um, it's all awesome. We we do have a little music playing, but most of it is just sort of imagination games. And because of that, we've always sort of in our heads imagined how our stories would look like. And I think because we're all voice over actors, the way that we imagine these stories is as cartoons, like when I flosed my eyes and like, that's what I picture. Um. Also, we are blessed and fortunate to have an amazing fan community who drew incredible pieces of fan art based on some of the scenes or moments from our games, and so we would have these just cinematic imaginations of what we are describing in our game, and we were always like, yes, yes, that's it. I wish I could see this this image animated, you know, I wish I could see it come to life. So I think in the back of our minds we always dreamed that it would one day be an animated series. And we took it out and pitched it around town to everybody, all these places, and they all said no, and it was very sad um. But then we remembered that we have this incredible fan community, and so we put up a Kickstarter to try to find enough money to finance a pilot episode. We figured if we could make one episode as sort of a proof of concept, we could get somebody to say yes to it. And our fans went crazy and they gave us way more money than we had asked for. Uh, and we ended up raising eleven million dollars a little bit four million dollars, which was I think eighteen times what we had asked for or something like that. And it was the It was the number one film and TV kickstarter in history. Uh, and it was life changing for many reasons. We didn't get to keep any of that money. By there, I'm not I'm not money bags McGhee over here. We we spent it all on the animated series. And wouldn't you know it, right after that happened, all the places that had said no to our animated series called us up and they were like, hey, we want to do your show. Will you come back and pitch it to us again because there's clearly an audience. And so we did that, and we pitched it around again, and Amazon said, we would love to have this on our platform, but also take the amazing gift that your fans gave you and uh and put in our own money and instead of making one season of it, um, we want to make more. So we they said, let's make a second season also, and let's make more episodes per season than than you exp did, and let's make the animation quality the best in the business and higher the best of the best animators and character designers and actors, and so it was an offer that we could not refuse. And we've now made an animated series that is it's our dream come true, and it's truly a dream to work on every day. Yeah, that's so good. Let's get into our own just some some lore and some chit chat from our own animated world. Which, again, if you like one show, I think there's a terribly good chance you will like the other if you are not already fans of both. UM, we know that critical role members love Avatar because they have been very generous in social media UM expressing that love of Avatar, Last Airbender and Legend of Kor, which is so wonderful. But I understand that you also have a couple of kiddos who are not not hating on the Avatar verse either. During the pandemic, it was one of the I think it was one of the first things, you know, because everyone was going a little stir crazy there at the beginning. UM. I think Avatar was one of the first series that they sat down and just watched start to finish, kind of like one episode per night until it was all through. And UM and then I think they went back and walked watched through it all again, which was so thank you for that because it helped me take care of them for a while and not have them go to board or stir crazy. And then I forget when, but I mentioned to them like, oh, by the way, you know there's another series. There's this thing called Cora. Also, I don't know if you guys are interested in that, and they were like, what, there's more, and so they watched that over and over again. I have an eight year old and a ten year old, and my eight year old has watched the Court of the entire Cores series I don't know, eight ten times through or something. Um, they're huge fans. Um they're gonna This is probably the most excited exciting thing that I've ever done. Is being in this podcast feels really good. Have you ever had conversations with them? And I totally understand if like this hasn't happened, But are there conversations that you have with them, whether are like this is why we love the a Verse or like these are the characters that we keep coming back for over and over again. I don't know if that's something that you get into, if they're just like, dude, we love this show, which is also fine. I think they really like how complex it is. I know they're just kids at all, but like that's that's also part of the rewatchability is I think that they like that the stories aren't all the same. It's not a formula every episode, and it's not you always know at the end they're gonna they're gonna end it with a silly joke when when there's nothing like that, like when they were watching it the first time, is that guy the bad guy? And they're like, well, yes, but not really. I mean, he can't really call him a bad guy because he's also now a good guy. And I'm like, okay, well are they and I don't, and they're like, no, I mean they be, but it's very it's very complicated. They complicated. I love that so much. All Right, Well, we'll get into some of our our favorite questions to ask our guests. Dante, you want to dig in with some animal crossing. You know how the animals in the Avatar verse are a lot of hybrid animals, so every you know, it seems that people have us included, have drawn into our favorite hybrid animals. Do you remember any favorite hybrid animals in the Avatar verse. Um is Momo hybrid of two things? He is, Yeah, he's a hybrid of a a lemur and a bat. It gets confusing because Momo was also modeled after one of the guy's cats, so then we get throw cats in there as well. Um, but yeah, and so he flies, he's like a flying lemurs is a little kind of um little like flying squirrel slash bat wings. But he's not an airbender, whereas Apa, who's the air bison, he definitely is airbending, so he's magic in that way. That's my son's UM favorite is Apau good taste, Good taste yours my eight year old? Uh, their favorite character is Cora. Yeah, obviously, But I was trying to think of of good pairings, and I just think it would be cool to mash like some of the weirder looking animals together to make like if you took a blood fish and a platypus and an ant eater. Maybe maybe there's a there's a three way hybridization or something, But like I feel like either that's gonna be horrifying, or what if all the all the ugliness sort of cancels itself out and you have like an Adonis looking creature, like the most beautiful looking thing ever. It could absolutely happen. Yeah, I definitely want to see the snout on that creature. I definitely want to see what comes through on the snout of that triple hybrid. That's amazing. I believe the shares shoe could be a triple hybrid too, is a triple hybrid? Yeah? Oh nice. I can't remember the three animals at this moment. Poisonous Tongue, you bet, yes, definitely three, and that is one of the scariest animals. Um. So, you talked about an item with your kids, so obviously your kids know about the ships. Are there are there ships in the Avatar universe that you ship? I think they are very happy with Ang and Katara, because I was asking them before going on the show. On your show, I was like, why do you rue rank so much? And they're like, come on, you've got to He's just the greatest. So yeah, I mean yeah, and anything you guys out there that the regal family shout out to Katang listen, I think what you need to do is tell them that Prince Zuko said he's very hurt that they don't ships that they don't ship Zuka at Qatara. Can you handle it, Dante? It's a nice ship. No what I say. I love people shipping our shows and your show too, Sam, because it because it's like the fans have that they gain ownership of the show and they create their own storylines with the things that we've created or helped create, and it's really just feels good as ours saying, Oh, wow, you guys are so into it that you've taken it to another level that's not even cannon anymore, which I find amazing and I love it. Yeah. No, you're totally right. When they've that's when the story sort of leaves your control and just sort of enter enters the world, and it's like, oh, this isn't my story anymore, it's it's our story. Such a great feeling for sure. Um. You brought up Sam being at Disney and worrying about great alot of taking you seriously, Um. She plays one of our all time favorite stories on the show, a Zulo, but Dante has mixed feelings about it because he at door is Gray, my sister. It's so hard because Gray as a person is uh is so wonderful and so hilarious. But she's just so good at being evil. She played the bad guy on our show the first season of our show, and part of the reason that we cast her was her performance as Zula on your show, Um, because she's just so she's so good and and you do even on your show, you get little hints of like, oh, this person isn't just bad to the bone, like she was made to be bad, you know, from her traumas or or her background or her father or whatever. And and on our show too, like she plays a multidimensional villain, UM, And I think that Gray is just so good at at using her voice to make you care about a villain, you know, like a lot. She's a wicked wit and wicked sense of humor. It is amazing, though she can empty her voice because she's so warm and so funny and lovely that she can empty all of that out, tip it all out, so that there is just like this like cruel voice that seemingly devoid of compassion. Is a real talent because I don't know, like you sort of go ouch, some of that's got to shine through. And you're right in that they're complex and she creates complex roles, but at the same time, you know you're not seeing a lot of Gray in a zula, and that is it's amazing. It's just amazing. She becomes another person. It's really cool. And then you hit stop on your recording session and she just turns into a lovable weirdo again. Yes, instantly. She's so fun to direct. Also just because she she has this thing. The best voice actors, I feel um are ones who like could also be writers if they cared or wanted to, you know, or or what are needed to um. But like she has that gift that a lot of great voice actors do. Like you, you you both where you can just kind of look at a script and maybe you read the whole thing, maybe you didn't even read the whole thing, but you but you kind of like you instantly get Okay, I get what this scene is about. I get what my character's role is, and I get what I'm supposed to be servicing, like I'm not like Gray will come in and you guys will too, and instantly understand like, Okay, I'm not the main character of this episode, but that's totally great. I know exactly what my my function is I'm supposed to make the main character feel really really bad so that at the end of the episode they can feel really really good or or whatever. Or I can be the sum one system for the main character. But you guys can get that after just reading just a couple of lines of dialogue. And um, I think that's one of the things that great does so well, is like you can show her one page of a script and she she understands what the other thirty pages will be. Probably. Oh, that's so well said. I love that, all right. Bosco asked the big question, Arnie. The big question we asked every guest that comes on this podcast is, of course I'm a huff puff. What kind of bender? No, that's helpful, that's helpful. That's actually very helpful. Yes, well, what kind of bender in the Avatar verse would you be? I've given this a lot of thought, and I also checked with my kids. Um there was a lot of well, you wouldn't be this because, and you wouldn't be this because, um so we eliminated fire very quickly. I knew you would eliminate fire fast. I by the way, I had this whole converation in my head as well. But I was really torn with the other three when I was thinking about you, like, I was very torn. I don't think I'm cool enough to be fired Dante, honestly, and I don't think my kids think so either too, Dorky, don't worry, Dante, this is still a compliment to you. Don't even worry about it. Where are we going, Sam, Where are we going with the Zellms? No? They my kids agreed. They thought that I would be an air bender because they said that I'm I keep calm when things go wrong. They said that I'm always happy and smiley and joyful. And they they said that I fared a lot. That's another bendor right there. That is the best trilogy of reasons. That's the best triangle triumvirate. I'm not sure what I mean, but I know that those are the best three reasons we've ever had. I can remove air and wind, I can settle air. I was close to water for you, but I settled on air. And but I dismissed Earth. But I played with Earth because you're so funny and like very grounded as well. Um, but I'm very smug right now. Oh my gosh, uh, Sam Regal, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for coming and talking about your world and fandom and passions and all the good stuff, your kiddos and all of that. I'm braving the elements. I have to thank you in the popularity of Critical Role for bringing D and D back into the universe of the world and the gamers out there. For me too, it got me playing D and D a game with friends and campends. Of course, special shout out to my friends Laura Bailey and Travis William part of your crew. I went to my first comic con with so many years ago in Australia, before they're married, before their parents, and I just have great memories those guys, so you know, when this happened for them, I was just so just delighted and it was amazing. Well, that's very nice, and thank you right back from from me and from all of us. I really do think that that Airbender and Cora really kind of like it established an audience for these kinds of stories that are complex and magical and rewarding and uh, these kinds of journeys that take unexpected twists and turns into fantasy spaces and and there's definitely characters on Critical Role, especially keels from the first campaign that are straight up based on airbender stuff. So so thank you guys for influencing us and being the spark that lit the flame. So uh and thank you guys guys so much for talking to me for so long. Oh man, this has been great. Um, where can people find you? Is there anything you want to mention that you haven't had a chance to yet? Uh? Yeah, I mean if you are seventeen or older, let's say, uh could definitely check out our cartoon. It's an adult cartoon on Prime Video. It's called The Legend of Box Machina. Season one is out and season two is is coming soon. And uh we broadcast every Thursday night at seven pm on twitch dot tv slash Critical Role. If you want to check out some role playing games, and there's also comic books and novels and stuff at Barnes and Noble and other stores. And if you just wanna check out our stuff by reading it. Yeah, I love it all right, everybody, Thank you, Thank you so much for listening to Avatar Braving the Elements, and hey made sure to subscribe follow We've a so review. All of that really helps the podcast so much, and we love you guys. Next week, we're going to be recapping The Serpent's Pass with fellow podcasters Athea Augustine and Vincent Bernard. You can follow me on social media at the j V Club on Instagram and at Janet Varney on Twitter. I'm at Dante Bosco on both of those. Well, see you next Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.