'The Legend of Vox Machina': 5 things you didn't know about Matthew Mercer
After the massive success of the animation series ‘Invincible’, Amazon is set to treat its viewers to another series that will surely become your latest obsession. Titled ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’, the upcoming animation series from Critical Role and Amazon Studios revolves around a band of misfits who get ready to save the world from a ruthless beast.
The show is based on Critical Role’s tabletop role-playing game (RPG) campaign of the same name. The campaign achieved a lot of success when it was started and raised over $11.3 million. The success encouraged Critical Role to turn it into a 10-episode series and as soon as Amazon was on-board, it picked up the series for 24 episodes across two seasons.
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The show features a stellar voice cast and most of the cast members are actually the founding members of Critical Role. Let’s take a look at the cast of the upcoming animated series.
Matthew Mercer as Sylas Briarwood
Matthew Mercer is one of the most prominent names in the world of voice acting and has given his voice to numerous iconic characters over the years. Mercer began his career by lending his voice to additional characters in several Japanese anime. Since then, he has worked on numerous projects. He is the Dungeon Master of Critical Role and leads several other voice actors through a ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ campaign.
Some of the projects he has been a part of include ‘Pokemon Origins’, ‘Attack on Titan’, ‘One Piece’, ‘Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’, ‘Ultraman’, ‘Beware the Batman’, ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’, and ‘Family Guy’. Apart from the aforementioned titles, Mercer has also worked with gaming companies and gave voice to video games series such as ‘World of Warcraft’, ‘Street Fighter IV’, ‘Mortal Kombat’, ‘Resident Evil 6’, ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’, ‘Fallout 4’, ‘Injustice 2’ and ‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’.
Marisha Ray as Keyleth
Ray was 19 when she moved to Los Angeles for having a career in the entertainment industry and started doing political canvassing to support her financially. In 2012, she came out with her first project and produced a fan series on Batgirl, titled ‘Batgirl: Spoiled’. In 2015, she joined the web series ‘Critical Role’. Since then, she has been playing a lot of characters for Critical Role. However, her main character remains to be Keyleth.
Ray has given her voice in ventures like ‘Persona 4: Arena Ultimax’, ‘Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’, ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’, ‘Fire Amblem Warriors’, ‘Final Fantasy XV: Comrades’, ‘Chastity Bites’, and ‘L.A. by Night’.
Laura Bailey as Vex’ahlia “Vex” Assar
Bailey has been a part of the industry since the age of 18 and made her anime debut as Kid Trunks in ‘Dragon Ball Z’. She went on to voice Rayne on the video game series ‘Blood Rayne’ and garnered a lot of positive reviews. In addition to her voice-over roles, Bailey has also appeared in several live-action productions. In 2001, she played a cameo role in an episode of ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ starring Chuck Norris in the lead role.
Over the years, her voice has graced our screens in projects such as ‘Spiral’, ‘Suzuka’, ‘One Piece’, ‘Naruto’, ‘Shin-Chan’, ‘Marvel Anime: Iron Man’, ‘Batman Unlimited’, ‘Rick and Morty’, ‘Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods’ and ‘Lego Batman: The Movie’.
Liam O’Brien as Vax'ildan "Vax" Vessar
Born on May 28, 1976, Liam O’Brien acted in various theatre productions while attending the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. One of his friends helped him in getting voice-over work in New York and since then, he has given his voice on several projects. He describes his voicing as deeper than his usual voice, and that he portrayed War as a fairly old soul who isn't surprised at the events around him.
‘Wolf’s Rain’, ‘Yukikaze’, ‘R.O.D.’, ‘Mermaid Forest’, ‘Naruto’, ‘Paradise Kiss’, ‘Blue Dragon’, ‘Wolverine and the X-Men’, ‘Avengers Assemble’, ‘Star Wars Rebels’, ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’, and ‘Star Wars: The Bad Batch’ are some of the projects she has worked on.
Ashley Johnson as Pike Trickfoot
Johnson began her career as a child actor and started acting at the age of 6. Johnson's career began at age 6 when she played the role of Chrissy Seaver on the sitcom ‘Growing Pains’ from 1990 to 1992. She made her feature film debut with the 1990 movie ‘Lionheart’. Five years later, she had another supporting role in the movie ‘Nine Months’ opposite Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore, and Robin Williams. In 2012, she appeared in ‘The Avengers’ as Beth, the waitress who is saved by Captain America.
Meanwhile, on television, she had notable roles on ‘The Killing’ and ‘Blindspot’. Her first voice acting role came in 1993 with ‘The Town Santa Forgot’. Johnson’s first major voice-acting role came in 1997 with ‘Recess’ and voiced the character of Gretchen.
Her acting (live-action and voice) credits include ‘What Women Want’, ‘Fast Food Nation’, ‘Otis’, ‘The Help’, ‘Jumanji’, ‘ER’, ‘Teen Titans’, ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, ‘The Mentalist’, and ‘Family Guy’.
Sam Riegel as Scanlan Shorthalt
Riegel has worked with several organizations and won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in an Animated Program for his work on ‘Danger & Eggs’. Since then, Riegel has mostly worked on anime and video games. He and his wife Tran witnessed the 9/11 attacks and were caught in the dust cloud caused by the collapse of South Tower. They managed to escape and witnessed the collapse of North Tower as well. Riegel captured the video that has been used in several documentaries.
As far as his acting credits are concerned, he has been featured on ‘K.O. Beast’, ‘Shaman King’, ‘Koi Kaze’, ‘Naruto’, ‘Skyhigh’, ‘Ultra Maniac’, ‘Mega Man Star Force’, ‘Digimon Fusion’, ‘One-Punch Man’, ‘DuckTales’, ‘Final Fantasy IV’, ‘Fallout: New Vegas’, ‘Battleship’, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’, and ‘Fallout 76’.
Excited about 'The Legend of Vox Machina'? Catch the upcoming animation series exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, January 28.
