Summary
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musicalbroke the mold for narrative gaming when it first released last summer, taking typical choice-based mechanics and giving them a brilliant twist in the form of interactive songs. It was the debut release from Summerfall Studios, which was founded in part byDragon Agecreator David Gaider, and received widespread critical acclaim for its storytelling and soundtrack. A year later, players are finally able to return to the mythical world of Greek gods with the newOrpheusDLC, which focuses on the titular character looking for love with the help of messenger god Hermes.
One of the biggest things that makesStray Godsso specialis its interactive soundtrack, where -depending on player choices - a song can change in an instant from a sad ballad to a powerful rock number. The system was pioneered by Gaider, an expert at branching paths, and composer Austin Wintory, known for his work on games likeJourney. The innovative system was further enhanced by a talented cast, with performances from actors likeThe Last of Us' Troy Baker and Laura Bailey,Apex Legends' Erika Ishii, and Anthony Rapp, known for his extensive Broadway career andStar Trek: Discovery.
Stray Gods: Orpheus Review - Continuing The Original’s Brilliance
The new Orpheus DLC for Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical has a much more comedic slant than the original while continuing the same great mechanics.
Screen Rantspoke to David Gaider, Anthony Rapp, and Erika Ishii across a series of interviews to discuss the inception of theOrpheusDLC, the recording process, other exciting projects, and what video games they’d like to see take a musical turn.
Crafting An Interactive Musical - Again
Returning To The Writer’s Room & Recording Booth For Stray Gods: Orpheus
In terms of the role of Hermes, what drew you to that role in the first place, and what was your initial reaction when you heard that they wanted you to come back for the DLC for an even bigger part in it?
Erika Ishii: Well, I was sort of relieved I didn’t have to sing, first and foremost, but it’s funny because I was really excited about the game, even back when it was in the Kickstarter phase. I’m friends with Liam [Esler], and I’m friends and/or a fan of everybody that was announced as part of the project, and so I was sharing it, and then I got the audition for Hermes. They wanted me to read for Hermes, and I was thrilled - and again, a little nervous about the singing, but music legend Austin Wintory was in my session for the little bit that I did sing. It ended up being just truly a who’s who of voiceover, and so I was honored to be part of that. Then, when they decided they were going to focus more on Hermes for the DLC - truly no words.
Obviously singing in itself can be a huge challenge with something like this, but I’m curious in general if, with the DLC, there was a scene that was particularly difficult to get right for whatever reason in the recording phase.
Erika Ishii: I think that by that time, I had come back to Hermes, and so we were pretty clicked in on the character, and Troy [Baker] is a fantastic director. It went so well I felt insane, I must say.It’s truly, truly wild that David [Gaider] and Troy were in my session with me, and were like, “That’s great, you’re doing so great,“and I was like, “Well, they don’t have incentive to lie to me, because this is their game, so I have to take that as fact, and we’ve got to move on.” It was oddly smooth sailing.
I saw the extremely exciting news today about your role inDragon Age. I know with this new one, David Gaider isn’t involved, but you mentioned in the video you posted that you’ve been a long-time fan of the franchise, so what was it like getting to work with David in this capacity?
Erika Ishii: That was truly a dream. I am such a fan of his, not only just his narrative prowess, but the passion and the heart that he puts into it, and how much he cares about it. There’s something really invigorating when you’re working with other people that are very much in and around and in love with games, with the medium. I was a little nervous, but then also just so thrilled to be working with him - and they were all very kind to me, for the record.
You mentioned before the interview how games like this one are what you usually play, even though you’re usually recording for much different styles of games a lot of the time. Are there any unique challenges that came with the recording process forStray Godsand this role that don’t typically come up for you?
Erika Ishii: Well, I don’t want to keep bringing up the singing, but there was always the fear that I’d have to do a whole song. I am joking, I love singing, but it’s just not something that I have encountered as much in my voice acting career. It was such a joy, I really love all the games that I’ve been a part of. I am so proud to be a part of them, and I really love the people that I work with, and getting to [raising arms theatrically] apply my craft. [Laughs] When you get to be in a game that has such rich characterizations and story, it’s just really joyful.
Your character, too, is so fun and comedic, they’re just such a nice foil to Orpheus as well. Is it fun to get to be that much lighter sort of person?
Erika Ishii: Oh, it’s really great. I feel like so much of games - and especially a lot of games I’m in - are a little more on the serious side, andI love how sweet and wholesome and encouraging Hermes is. While I love a sad boy - give me a sad boy any day - but having a buddy comedy, with just this sad boy, and this sweet little optimistic being, was really, really joyful, again.
It’s a fun puzzle, a fun exercise in subtlety and nuance and trying to just walk each step individually, but still having it tie together. - Anthony Rapp
First, I would just love to know what your initial reaction was when you got told about the Orpheus DLC. How did that first occur?
Anthony Rapp: Well, I feel like I have to go back one step before that to give context on my reaction, which is that I’ve been an avid gamer. I played a lot of games on the Game Boy when I was a kid, and then I didn’t play games for a long time until the late 2000’s, like 2008, ‘09, somewhere in there, is where I started up again, when it’s sort of the golden age of the modern games. I fell in love with gaming, especially branching storytelling gaming.Dragon Age and Mass Effect, were a couple of my favorite games, so to get asked to do something like this in the first place was such a thrill, especially with David Gaider, whom I knew from Dragon Age. I would’ve been more than happy to just get to do the main game, that little bit that I got to do, which was so fun, so fulfilling.
I knew Troy [Baker] a little bit through Austin [Wintory], I’ve known Austin for years, so then, when they got in touch with me and let me know that they were doing this DLC focused on my character, I mean - to say it was an honor just feels like a profound understatement. I was just thrilled and grateful for the opportunity. It’s a space that I would love to get to do more work in, and I do recognize that it’s the sort of space that’s a bit of a closed loop space, in many ways.
There’s a lot of actors who do a lot of - deservedly, like, Troy does a million games because he’s really good at it, and he’s known in the industry, so a part of me is also hopeful that this could open up those doors, and I thought maybe the DLC would help do that. But really, the main thing was just to get to work with these folks again on a story that was focused on my character and that had so much richness to it, too, and all these new songs.
How did this recording process differ from you other acting? Obviously, you have extensive acting experience, but in terms of video game acting, I know it’s a sort of whole different ball game in a lot of ways.
Anthony Rapp: Yeah, I’d done a little bit of a Stamets voice in the Star Trek game a couple of years ago, and that prepared me somewhat for the aspect of this kind of work, which is that I am by myself in the booth, Austin and Troy and David were on Zoom. I was in New York, they were in LA and Australia, respectively. I’m doing all of my dialogue reading with Troy, who’s not the actor who will actually play the role, but he’s a good actor, and can approximate the style of how the other actors are playing those parts. But because I’ve done the Star Trek game, I was accustomed to the relative strangeness of doing video game acting, because it is different. You’re not quite playing ball in quite the same way as you would in a normal film or television or play experience.
With this there’s like, two lines of dialogue, and then - depending on how the player reacts - you go to another branch or another branch.It’s breaking it down in a whole other way than I would ever break down any other kind of script, because there are multiple responses that are relative. It’s a fun puzzle, a fun exercise in subtlety and nuance and trying to just walk each step individually, but still having it tie together. I don’t want to get too technical about it, but it was a really fun and challenging exercise.
And you mentioned how you had been a big fan of branching stuff likeDragon Ageand that sort of game. Was it cool to get sort of a peek behind the curtain of how that branching system works from an inside perspective?
Anthony Rapp: It was, but I think that this is an extraordinary example of it, though, because of the music. Austin showed me a couple of his charts of how he does it. I mean, he has a computer helping him, because I think it is maybe too much for a human mind to do alone. It’s one thing to write dialogue, and if you say yes or no to a question, then you could have different responses. But that’s a little more straightforward than writing music that can change feel, but still work with what came before, tempo, feel, melody style, all of that, but still be able to feel organically connected to what came before. It’s a breakthrough, a profound artistic and technical endeavor that Austin and his musical collaborators created, which is remarkable.
Of all the songs and scenes that you recorded, are there any that stand out to you as either particularly difficult or just particularly memorable in the recording process?
Anthony Rapp: The titles aren’t forefront in my mind because I’d sang so many little snippets of them, so forgive me for that. I’m not sure which version you heard, but in the finale, the very, very end of the DLC, there’s a version where Orpheus - I’m paraphrasing - but essentially everything that he has been through, he can let go. He no longer has to try to fix anything, or he can just let go of all of it and walk into the void.
The delicacy of the lyrics and the beauty of the music, I don’t know, it just felt like I could just lean into that and ride that wave in a way that was very, very special as an actor. As an actor, I find - especially with music -when you’re handed a song, that everything makes sense. The melody of it makes sense with the lyrics, and it makes sense with the field, all of the elements, they just work. Because music communicates in ways that words alone don’t, so as an actor, when it’s a song like that, I feel like I just dive in, and it takes me where it needs to go. That was one of the most meaningful for me, personally.
This game had such a fun blend of comedy, but also still that meaningful undercurrent that the base game had, as well. I mean, Erika Ishii as Hermes, they are so incredible in that role, and I feel like you guys were really good foils to each other in a lot of ways.
Anthony Rapp: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that, because I never got to work with them directly. That’s the wild thing about these games. In some games, I believe in Last Of Us, they did film those scenes together, so they really were playing off of each other. But in many situations, you’re alone in a booth, and so you need a really good director, and I think Troy is a really good director - I think in large part because he’s such a good actor - helping to make sure that these things are going to connect.
I always attempt to approach things with, even if it’s heightened, that it still has a core truth to it. That’s what I like to try to find. I appreciated that about the writing: that even when it was a little silly, there still is this core truth of this person who’s kind of been a little bit lost and lost his purpose, lost his sense of what’s possible, and then goes on this little quest to find that.
This DLC definitely has a much more comedic tone, I feel like, than the base game, which I really enjoyed. It was really, really funny. That was both true for the dialogue, but also the songs. The speed dating song is so good.
David Gaider: The speed dating song specifically,I wanted to attempt to see if we could could figure out how to do an actually laugh-out-loud funny song. We bumped into Tom Cardy at South by Southwest at Sydney. It was like, “Would you be interested in this?” Montaigne (Jess Cerro), who worked with us as a lyricist in the first game, had worked with him before, so they were able to connect us. He’s like, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
For the record, I did laugh out loud at that song.
David Gaider: Excellent. Yes, that’s a particular song that you can replay it and you get different paths, and they’re all - I mean, I think I have a favorite. There’s this one where the one date you make a joke to, and then she just starts laughing and laughing, and she gets maniacal. That’s Laura Bailey. I was in the booth when we asked her, I said,“Can you just give us a laugh that builds until you sound insane?“She did it on the first take, and we were just dying in the booth. Every time I hear that, when I play the song, I remember that, and I just kill myself laughing. It’s great.
Did you already know from the very start that you wanted this to be a lot more comedic as a DLC, or did that just happen?
David Gaider: Oh, yeah. I couldn’t revisit Grace and the romances and make this a romance-themed DLC, which would take a lot of more resources. I’d love to do that, but if we’re going to keep it really small, then let’s keep it tight and let’s explore doing something funny instead of angsty. I was like, “Well, which character do I think is the funniest?” I’m like, “Well, Orpheus has the most potential. He’s just so full of himself.” Reminds me of Frasier from the old TV show, that’s the pattern - when he speaks, I’m imagining Frasier.
I never made that connection, but you’re so right.
David Gaider: Yeah, and I was like, “Well, who would I pair him with?” I remembered the Hermes road trip joke, and Hermes and Orpheus seemed like they would be a perfect pair, an odd couple road trip, and I was like, “Yes, yes.”
They proved to be really good foils to each other, I think, which was really entertaining.
David Gaider: Exactly, yeah. Those kind of characters, it’s like too much of them can be almost detrimental, but I think if you get them in a small dose, and especially when they have a foil - Orpheus is so full of himself, and pretentious even. If he didn’t have someone taking a little bit of the wind out of his sails, it might be a little bit hard to take at times, but it seems like it’s just enough.
I felt like in terms of exploring new ground, the songs also felt like you guys were more comfortable in the format, and Austin was maybe feeling a little bit more able to experiment musically as well. Would you say that rings true?
David Gaider: Oh, yeah. When we finished the main game, the last song we worked on, which was the final song, the finale,that’s when we felt like we finally figured out how to do the process. I had to pull back the throttle a bit. Because initially the songs we made, I would plan out the structure and exactly what information, because how to branch and maintain information flow stuff is my specialty, and I was like, “Okay, I’ll do that and give what needs to be conveyed in each node.” Then the lyricists would come in, and they would fill out what is contained therein, but then sometimes Austin and the lyricists would charge ahead, and by the time they came back with a, “Hey, so what do you think of this?” it’s almost too late to change course.
We had to start doing that earlier. I had to pull back and instead of me planning everything out, I would sit down with Austin and the lyricists and we would walk through the structure together, and then they would just do a little bit of the song and come back and say, “Here’s a snippet, what do you think?” Then just best practices, because nobody had ever made a game like this, so we had no way to know what was the best way to go.
So you’re right, when we just started DLC, now that we had the finality, we’re like, “Okay, this is how we should do it.” We were able to just get going a little more and play a little bit more. The Back from the Dead Tour was pretty much me saying to Austin, “Hey, what if I have a song where the choice is not the big deal in the song, and it’s all about how you play with the song itself, and this’ll be your song to play with as you feel best?” I still think he didn’t get to do everything he wanted to.
Initially in the song, you made a choice right at the outset, which was whether you wanted to do a slow ballad or more of a rock song, and they wrote both. When we got that, it was like,“You have circumvented our budget for six songs by putting two songs into one song, and we can’t do that."[Laughs] We had to cut one of those paths, but he and Yon, the lyricist, did as much as they could with the one song, and I think it still rocks pretty well. I liked it. Then you get to that ending, which I think - I don’t know how well it telegraphs - but they were getting to that Beatles moment, where the Beatles were playing on stage and the crowd was just cheering so loud and that nobody can hear the actual song, and they ended up just walking off stage.
You touched on it a little, talking about the musicality and nailing that process down, but I’m curious what you feel are the biggest things in general you learned from making the original game that really helped with this DLC?
David Gaider: Well, it was more how to collaborate. I’ve tried writing in a few different mediums now. I’ve written for games, I’ve written a novel, I’ve written comics, and what I keep ending up discovering each time is that one’s skill at one medium does not translate perfectly. That was immediately true when I started the main game, because I thought, “I could try my hand at writing lyrics,” and then discovered very quickly that I wasn’t very good at it -which was actually a DLC triumph as well, because I wrote a couple of the songs myself as lyricist.
I was very nervous about it, and I remember the way we did those was Austin would do a piece of music, like, “What about this?” I would get it, and I would write the lyrics to what he had provided. I remember the first time I sent him, “Well, okay, here’s my lyrics. Go ahead, tear it apart, and maybe we’ll get Montaigne to help us out on it,” and he’s like, “No, this is actually really good.” I was like, “Oh, thank God.” I thought hopefully I’d learned something after the Stray Gods, because I was really good at editing. Somebody else does lyrics, and I would come in, and I could play with what had been done, but doing the first draft was so difficult. That was a lot of it - everybody playing outside their comfort zone.
It was true for Austin, because music for games is often tertiary to the main thing. The team doesn’t have to get involved; a composer can go off, make their music, and then just send it in, and maybe they get notes and there’s iteration, but that’s the extent of it. Whereas this required him to be very communicative and have a lot of stops along the way where he had to get in touch with me. He’s got to work directly with a lyricist, which he had done sometimes before, but it’s different from “a composer works with a lyricist” to now a composer works with a lyricist and has somebody who needs to worry about structure as well.
The lyricist had to be - it’s a very solo endeavor. I mentioned about my knowledge of structure and stuff like that; I had to pull back on my need to control the exactness of the structure and work -how do we work together with so many different plates that we need to keep spinning?That was the main thing everybody had to figure out in the main game, especially since so many of us were middle-aged white men. Learning to share the ball, for people who look like me, [Laughs] it’s sometimes a bit of a challenge, yes.
Giving Games A Musical Twist
What Existing IPs Should See More Songs
The mechanics ofStray Godsare so unique in how it’s branching but musical at the same time. Even if it’s a franchise where it would make no sense for this to happen, I’m curious: if you could introduce the same musical story mechanics into any existing franchise, where do you think it would be the most fun?
Erika Ishii: Oh my gosh, so, here’s the thing:I think that every franchise should have a musical DLC. You know how many popular shows that are in no way musical related end up having a musical episode? I think that that should be - truly, throw it in, if it exists, throw it in there. I want Halo the musical, I want Apex Legends the album, truly any franchise you can conceive of should have this mechanic for music.
I think for games that are a little more intimidating, where it’s like a tough shooter or something, it would make it way more approachable.
Erika Ishii: Oh my God, Dark Souls the musical! Absolutely, that would get me to play a Souls game.
I talked to David Gaider about this last week, so I’m very curious to see if your answers are similar at all to his: if you could introduceStray Godsmusical elements into any existing game franchise, what would it be?
Anthony Rapp: Part of me initially went to something like the Last of Us, because I do think a story that is that emotionally intense, if music is used in the right way, it could be really powerful. But I also recognize that one of the things about The Last of Us that’s so important and effective is that it doesn’t give player agency and choice, it purposely sort of forces you to have to do things a certain - you can still decide to go total guns blazing or be really stealthy, but generally, you are required to have to do some really brutal things.
you may’t do a pacifist approach to that game, purposefully, so in terms of the branching, then I don’t know what kind of branches it would be. In terms of telling the story with music as an element, I think something like that could be really beautiful and effective; again, it would have to be done well.
Yeah. David had saidThe Witcher, which I think would also be really fun.
Anthony Rapp: That makes sense, because you have a minstrel, essentially, in the game.
Exactly, he’s a bard, so it makes sense for him.
Anthony Rapp: He’s a perfect door opener to that style of storytelling.
If you were that emotional inside of dialogue, they’d say, “Oh, that’s corny,” or, “This character is emotional exposition.” Somehow it just works inside a song, and I felt like there were some types of things where it was easier to tackle in singing than otherwise. - David Gaider
You mentioned the last time we spoke about the idea thatStray Godsis out there, maybe other games in the future drawing some inspiration from that as a new genre. I’m curious, even if it’s not realistic, if there’s a game series you would love to take a musical turn just for the fun of it.
David Gaider: The Witcher. It would be in the way that - because my original idea for a musical was for Dragon Age, right? Because there’s a dream realm and having a demon of revelry who could make it, because I like the idea of the musical being diegetic. But The Witcher has a bard character who is very central to the cast, and they have magic and stuff.
They’ve almost gotten there a couple times in the TV show with Jaskier.I feel like you could in fact push that to the forefront and have a Jaskier-themed episode, which is Jaskier’s view of the world, and everybody’s singing. Then you may be like, “It’s all in Jaskier’s head, so they’re not actually singing, but this is how he views everybody.” I think that would be a really neat thing to try.
I love the idea of - because sometimes it fits when we’re talking Buffy or Xena, these are shows that had musical episodes, and it’s like, “Yeah, that makes sense.” I love the idea of taking a show where that’s like, “That does not fit this tone or genre,“because I think you gain something just by virtue of writing contrary to expectations, subverting them. I think that can really bring something to the table as well.
With Stray Gods, I think we had to carefully manage expectations. I think when we first announced it, people expected some Disney-esque, very happy-go-lucky game, and I’m like, “Well, you clearly have never met me or played any of the games I’ve written, because that’s not going to happen.” I really like the idea of having the story be this very serious, but does it skew more towards the Buffy “Once More, with Feeling”?
Because they made a musical episode, and in that musical episode, they resolved all the big emotional arcs that were underway for that entire season, which was amazing. But they were all very serious arcs, and I think that’s what I liked about it. Taking some very serious topic - like, how do you tackle the Aphrodite story from the original game and put it against a musical and not feel like you’re treating the topic of, I guess you could say it’s about suicide, and not treating it without enough deference, or you’re being irreverent about it and demeaning the topic itself. How can you bring something to that and it still feels meaningful and serious?
I think that juxtaposition really makes it more engaging in a way somehow.
David Gaider: I feel that as well. I think a lot of my experiment with making a musical was that you’re able to get so far by having people just talk, talk, talk, and it’s just dialogue or story, and you can do a lot. That’s how people have operated. Singing allows us to access an emotional core in a way that we don’t when we talk.
We permit the kind of emotional self-revelation in a song, the viewer or the listener permits that to happen in a song. Whereas if you were that emotional inside of dialogue, they’d say, “Oh, that’s corny,” or, “This character is emotional exposition.” Somehow it just works inside a song, andI felt like there were some types of things where it was easier to tackle in singing than otherwise.
I’m a bit glad that it did not go the Disney happy-go-lucky route, I think it is much behooved by that as a game.
David Gaider: I wouldn’t be opposed. I think if I was going to do Disney, I would want dancing, actual dancing, and then that’s a whole other level. You’d need 3D - either 3D or a lot more sprites, the 2D pictures - in order to indicate movement and stuff. We did a little bit of dancing in the original game, but really, if I was going to have it be Disney and happy, I’d want way more movement.
I would have to explore animation at that point, I think. But not everything needs to be angsty and super serious either. I do love Disney, so if somebody came to me and said, “Dave, this is your challenge, write something that is pure Disney that is all about lightness and heart,” and I’d be like, “All right, challenge accepted. I could do that.” Especially for these times, I think we need a Disney-esque musical now more than ever.
Yeah, and like you said, even in this same series, you managed to experiment with making things much lighter than the first time around.
David Gaider: Right, exactly. It’s hard to take Orpheus too seriously. I think even in that instance, Orpheus isn’t a very serious character, and neither is Hermes, honestly. Still,I wanted it to have a story that says something about how we approach our search for happiness and meaning. How deliberate can that be? Do you swing to the other side? Just take things as they come, is that happiness? I still always want to say something.
Reflecting On Past Projects & Exciting Future Prospects
Dazed & Confused, Dragon Age, Summerfall’s Next Game, & More
You’ve also been a frequent guest on projects likeCritical RoleandThe Adventure Zone, and done an amazing job there. Do you have any favorite in-game moments from your time on those projects that stick out to you for any reason?
Erika Ishii: Gosh, that’s really hard. I think you love all these characters and all these worlds in the moment that you’re in them, and then afterwards, they’re all fond of memories. ButI think one that just really sticks with me is a character I played in The Seven, on Dimension 20, had a grand entrance to a ballroom, and it was truly this sort of thing that I have dreamed about since I was a child. It was so beautifully narrated by Brennan Lee Mulligan, and everybody in that campaign was just so on board, and there was so much positive femme encouragement. That moment always sticks out to me.
You have been such a pivotal part in so many huge AAA series, now with another one coming up as well, but as you mentioned, you tend to skew more towards indie, cozier, smaller projects. Do you see yourself wanting to skew that way more career-wise as well, or is it sort of just wherever things take you is where you’ll go?
Erika Ishii: I really want to do it all. I definitely do skew indie, but I do play the big adventure action games as well. As I said, The Last of Us was a huge inspiration to me, performance and career-wise, and so I just really want to go wherever the passion is. I’ve had the incredible privilege of working with people who love this medium, andI want to be part of any projects where people are excited about their idea, things that are distinct artistic visions. I think games is just so perfectly suited for that, because I think a lot of games are so perfectly suited for that singular artistic vision, just because everybody involved really cares so much about this specific medium.
Shifting a little bit to the super excitingDragon Agenews, you mentioned that you’ve been a long-time fan of the series, could you talk a little bit about your personal history with the series a little bit more?
Erika Ishii: It’s funny, because I think that I didn’t really get super into Dragon Age until Inquisition, but it’s always been in the consciousness even before that, and I had friends working on it even before I was playing it. Every single one of the developers of this game has a legacy of games that have inspired me. Obviously, David’s narrative in Dragon Age, Troy is - even if you look at his 2013, The Last of Us, and BioShock, and then Austin, who is a longtime friend of mine; Journey was the first game that I ever streamed live. Just being a part of this project with so many people I admire, with so many incredible huge IPs under their belts, then to do this really intimate beautiful story was something really, really special.
You mentioned that you’ve been working onDragon Age: The Veilguardfor four years, that must be such an immense amount of hours and lines. Do you have any sense of how many lines you even recorded at this point, or is it all just a blur?
Erika Ishii: Well, I’m not supposed to say anything one way or another for anything about Dragon Age at this point -but I will say that it was a lot of my time. But Hermes - I got to be an enby in that, and in that way, having Hermes announced, and having people be excited for an enby actor, getting to play an enby character, sort of felt like a weather shift in games, for me personally. There’ve been some incredible enby characters and enby actors for quite a while now, but really getting to play my truth was very significant for me in this one.
Shifting just a little bit for our TV and movie readers, I have to ask just a couple questions aboutStar Trek: Discovery. I’m curious, now that it’s come to an end, if there are any particular behind-the-scene moments that stick out to you at all from your time on the show.
Anthony Rapp: The thing that I have been thinking about so much since the ending of the show is about the connection we all had and have, really, as a family. I knew Wilson Cruz before, I’ve known him for 27 years now. We were friends before, and we’ve become closer friends because of this, which is really nice. But everybody, it’s a strong bond that we’ve formed that I think does come through on screen, but one of the people that I did feel a very strong bond with is gone, Kenneth Mitchell. I don’t know how much you know about his story, but he was diagnosed with ALS - I think during the second season of filming is when his diagnosis happened, second or third.
The producers were visionary in giving him the opportunity to - he had played a couple Klingons beautifully, incredibly effectively, and then his disease was progressing, so he was losing a lot of mobility. He could still speak, and they gave him a character to play in season three named Aurelio, a scientist who was human, so he got to have his own face not hidden behind prosthetics. They built a special kind of sci-fi wheelchair that, in the show, was like a floating chair, but in the set, he was in a chair so he could be in the scenes with us, and I was given a couple of scenes to play with him.
Jonathan Frakes was our director for that episode that I had those scenes with him, and Jonathan Frakes has become a friend and a mentor and was such a wonderful director. That, right now, has been one of the sequences that has stood out really strongly in my mind, because Kenneth died in February after fighting ALS for several years. To be with him in that space where he’s doing beautiful work, struggling physically, but bringing every piece of his artistry and heart and soul to it, and for that safe space to be held by the magnificent Jonathan Frakes, I will never forget it, and I’m very grateful that I got to do that with him. Because we’d already become friends, and I loved him, but I hadn’t gotten to really work with him directly, so that is one of the most special memories that I have.
That’s really sweet.
Anthony Rapp: Thank you.
I’m curious, also, because Strange New Worlds got to do a musical episode. Did you ever look at that and go, “Man, why didn’t we get to do that?”
Anthony Rapp: I mean,we had been having people at conventions ask us about that from pretty early on. Because Wilson [Cruz] and I were in Rent together, Mary Wiseman can sing a bit, Sonequa [Martin-Greenhey] wouldn’t advertise their singing, but they can sing, and Doug Jones can sing, so we were like, “We could do a musical episode.”
Obviously someone, somewhere was thinking about it in the Star Trek universe, but then Strange New Worlds got to do it, so yeah, I did feel a little bit like [disgruntled noise].
Shifting just a tiny bit to film, Richard Linklater recently teased the idea of a thirdDazed and Confused. How would you feel about potentially returning to that world?
Anthony Rapp: I would love that. I mean, that remains my favorite film experience as an actor, to make the film, and also the way the film turned out. It was a dreamy, dreamy, dreamy, collaborative, creative experience. I would love that. That’s the first time hearing of it.
It was the 30th anniversary last year; we were going to do an event for that, but because of the strike, we didn’t. I believe there’s something in the works this year to try to do something just to mark that occasion. If that happens, I will be sure to tell Rick that I heard a rumor. [Laughs] No, I mean, I think it’d be wonderful. It’s such a beloved movie, for very good reason. There’s a heartbeat in it and a sense of authenticity, and it’s got great actors, and it just feels like a real thing. So much of what is special about it is this sense of a kind of nostalgia, but that’s not rose-colored glasses, it’s also not too dark, so if you revisit these characters years later,I think Rick would probably have some very interesting ideas about what happened.
And going back to future roles, but in video games, you had mentioned sort ofStray Godspotentially opening the door to more opportunities like that for you. Is there any sort of specific genre or type of character, or even existing franchise where you’re like, “I would really love to play that next in a game”?
Anthony Rapp: Something like Dragon Age or Mass Effect seems like pretty fantastic. Each of those characters is always so individuated and has really wonderfully rich backstories, and the writing is subtle and nuanced. Now that I’ve had this taste of getting to play all these different iterations and versions of relationships and outcomes, that just seems like it’d be super, super fun to do. I’ve always enjoyed playing dark characters, as well, and villains, and monstrous people, and so it’d be fun to try to get to do something like that, too.
The last time we spoke, I remember we did talk about the potential of a sequel or adding more to the universe. Of course, this wasn’t as huge a project as a full sequel, but what was it like to return to this universe of the base game. Has the fan reception to this new project maybe made more releases likely in the future?
David Gaider: Well, we don’t know what the reception has been yet, at least in the studio. Hopefully Humble will let us know pretty soon, but there’s been a little bit of chatter online, but it’s been pretty quiet - but that’s to be expected from a DLC, so I don’t think it really moves the needle much either way. It’s still fun.This DLC was meant as a love letter to the fans, the ones who have been with us and who have been very excited.
I couldn’t really make it about Grace or about any of the romance characters. I know this is what some fans probably would’ve wanted, but it’s because the amount of content we could make was so small. If I touched on Grace as a central character, I’d have to bring in all the romance characters, all four. There just wasn’t enough - we only had budget for six songs. There’s no way I could do that justice, so it’s like, “Okay, what else could I do?” That’s where there had been this joke inside the studio for a while about Hermes taking someone on a road trip, and I was like, “I dig that idea. Let’s explore that.” That’s just where this came from.
Now that the team has gotten more comfortable in general, creatively speaking - and I’m not even talking about in terms of like, “Oh, what’s next for the characters?” - but in terms of broader creative concepts, what are you now wanting to explore next?
David Gaider: I think everyone has worked a long time on a musical. I think we’re okay with putting that aside, at least for now. If we revisit it in the future, great. I don’t want to take that off the table completely, butI think on a creative level, everybody would like to try something a little bit new. I think we’re okay, we’re ready for that, because we’ve been laying down sort of the pipelines in the studio, learning how we work together and how we make specific kinds of content, and to use that and try something new.
But I think the way Liam [Esler] and I, and Elie [Young], the way we operate is we always want to figure out what is the next thing that is different and a little bit weird. Let’s live outside of our comfort zone a little bit. We’ve been talking about some new projects, which I know for me it’s like, “I’m not quite sure how to make this,” and they were like, “Yeah, just like Stray Gods,” and I was like, “Oh, apparently that’s where I live now.”
I do think that you’ve established as a studio that that is your niche - not the musical story thing, but in terms of, “I’ve never seen this before,” that creative style, which I think really sets it apart.
David Gaider: I think I’m okay with doing something that maybe some people have seen somewhat. The way the industry is right now, nobody wants to take any risks, and we’re not a studio that can operate without funding. For us, it’s been a challenge to figure out what’s something we can do that feels commercially viable enough for the current funding atmosphere, but yet is still in our wheelhouse in terms of something that’s cool and different.
I don’t want to keep pulling out the word innovative, because that’s a word that kept getting applied to Stray Gods, and I think that can be a bit of a trap too. That’s like the M. Night Shyamalan trap - I don’t want to fall into that either. But I left AAA a number of years back, and I said to Liam recently,“If I’m going to live in indie, the reason I’m here has to be because I can do something that satisfies my need for whimsy.”
Stray Godsand theOrpheusDLC are available now for PlayStation consoles, Xbox consoles, Nintendo Switch and PC.
