Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! is a series of one-shot adventures that follows a new party of first-level characters on a wild adventure with an inevitably tragic end. Although the characters stand no chance of survival facing off against some of the biggest baddies in Dungeons & Dragons, the heart and comedy continue to shine through. With each episode featuring a different batch of heroes, the series brings in a phenomenal new cast of players, including Sean Gunn, Patton Oswalt, Seth Green, Mica Burton, Khary Payton, Skeet Ulrich, Aabria Iyengar, and more.
The new episode reunites David Dastmalchian and Steve Agee, who were co-stars in The Suicide Squad. It also stars Matthew Lillard and Noura Ibrahim, with Jon Ciccolini as the Dungeon Master. Lillard and Ciccolini created Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!, along with Beadle & Grimm’s co-founders Bill Rehor, Paul Shapiro, and Charlie Rehor.
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Screen Rant interviewed David Dastmalchian about his episode of Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! He reminisced about his love of tabletop games, including playing with The Suicide Squad cast, and shared how playing in front of a live audience felt. Dastmalchian also explained how Dungeson & Dragons allows him to use his acting skills in different ways and how it influences his work in comic book writing.
David Dastmalchian Talks Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!
Screen Rant: Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! is one of my favorite D&D shows because it is just absolute chaos in the best way, and I loved your character in this episode, but I have to ask you, what were your first thoughts when you heard the pitch for this of level one characters playing against these really big, bad monsters?
David Dastmalchian: I assumed, because this was something that we were going to be doing and performing in front of a televised audience with cameras, and then we had a live audience there as well, that we were going to be given some kind of opportunity, some kind of hope, some kind of glimmer of a chance of victory. And then it’s like when you realize that you’re all level one blumpity dumps up against powers way beyond any possibility of hope, I realized like, oh, we’re screwed. So that’s what it was.
But it is always fun to be in a pickle with people that you love and who are very fun and funny. So getting to be in a pickle with people like Matthew and Steve Agee, and these are very close friends of mine, Steve Agee’s, one of my best friends in the world. Nora was awesome. It was really fun. And I love D&D. I had not played D&D for quite a long time. And then when we went into 2020 and everybody was isolating during the pandemic, a number of my friends wanted to get a campaign going, and so they started playing and it was pretty awesome.
Did your approach to playing change going into this, knowing it was only an hour long, so you couldn’t get into huge amounts of backstory or anything?
David Dastmalchian: Well, I still loved my backstory. I thought that Bigham Battleax was this total aged barbarian who is just getting so old now that this may be his last hurrah. So the hope was he’s going to go out in a bang. I didn’t realize how much of a bang that was going to be. But no, I think it was more of like, okay, there’s only one hour, we’re going to do a whole campaign in an hour. How the heck is that going to work? And then I just immediately realized the inherent both comedy and entertainment value in watching these people try to solve an entire mystery and beat a big bad in less than 60 minutes.
Can you talk a little bit about playing with Matthew and Steve, who you are such good friends with? What was that like, especially on camera in front of an audience?
David Dastmalchian: Because it was me, Matthew, Steve, and Nora, right? Nora’s awesome and a real D&D player and can run a great game. But it was fun because Steve and I play. We’ve been playing games for years together. We’ve never played D&D, but Steve and I play games like Mafia, Werewolf, Deception, you name it. I’m a big tabletop gamer and so my living room is very often some assembly of my friends playing games and yelling at each other, which is always really fun. In fact, when we were shooting The Suicide Squad, we had some really fun nights of Mafia that we played because James Gunn is very good at Mafia.
We got Peter Capaldi to play. We played with Margot. Daniela who was Ratcatcher 2, ended up being really good at it. So Steve and I have this long history of either when we’re shooting together or just when we’re… Because he only lives five minutes from me, we are always playing games. So going into D&D with Steve was special because he’s not a big D&D guy, but he’s really good at games and he’s also one of the funniest people I know.
And then Matthew is, he’s a dungeon master. Matthew is a real true… He’s got 20 sided dice just falling out of his pockets at any given time. So getting to finally play with him, even if it was an abridged version of the game. And by the way, Matthew’s best friends all make this show with him. So even though Matthew’s a good friend of mine, it was really cool to get to meet his longtime closest friends who are such wonderful guys. It was really neat.
Can you talk to me about the live studio audience element? Did it amp up the energy at the table for you as both a player and a performer?
David Dastmalchian: It did because I’m not funny, so it was fun for me to see the funny people actually getting the laughs out of the audience. But for me, the performer in me just wanted to bring Bigham Battleaxe to the story in a way that they would be engrossed and find interesting. But it’s a lot of pressure because as somebody who’s highly competitive like I am when it comes to gameplay, I wanted to kick ass and I wanted to win, and I just kept getting my ass handed to me. I mean, I was brought down by Necrotic Spell. It was like my body rotted from the inside out.
To be fair, this is very much designed for you not to be able to win.
David Dastmalchian: Yeah, thank you. Designed to fail. I was set up for complete failure. I really resent that. It’s not cool.
I also would argue you are very funny because your introduction to Bigham was one of my favorite parts. You going, “I’ll do the suit of rats, but also I was a sexy nurse, so I want to combine them,” was also great.
David Dastmalchian: Sexy nurse, yes. That was because we were at a masquerade party and I felt like I know what it’s like to not be invited to a party and want to be at a party. And I also love a costume party, and I think that you can make anything sexy. So like sexy barbarian nurse, pretty great rats covered in rat grossness. Yeah, why not?
It was perfect, and I really hope we see cosplay of that in the future.
David Dastmalchian: That would be amazing. That would be amazing. If no one else does it, I’m going to do it.
Can you talk to me a little bit about the difference between playing characters that you create, like Bigham, versus characters that are created by someone else?
David Dastmalchian: Well, I guess the only difference truly is that when you’re playing D&D or any other RPG where you’re creating your characters… I was a big Marvel superheroes player when I was a kid as well, where usually you could play with cannon characters, but you could also create your own heroes and roll your own. I feel like the only difference is the script is at the mercy of the dice. So I guess I don’t think I approach things that differently. I think I probably don’t…
It’s interesting, I’ve never played a D&D campaign where everybody’s in character the whole time, although that could be really fun because you’re David and then you’re Bigham, you’re both entities throughout gameplay. It would be really fun, I think, actually to immerse ourselves into a campaign where once the DM starts the adventure, it’s like you’re now in character the whole time like voice, physicality. That would be cool.
Are you able to stretch any muscles playing D&D that you don’t necessarily get to as much with scripted acting?
David Dastmalchian: Yeah, because the discovery of and the tension and the stakes of rolling the dice every time you are confronted with a major decision. And that’s everything from intuition, not just battle stuff. Like anybody who watches Faster, Purple Wormer who has played D&D knows, and even if you haven’t played D&D, you’re rolling the dice more than just to find out if your battleaxe is going to find its mark, or if the arrow that you’re shooting is going to land in some ogres eye. You’re also rolling for all manner of different things. Finding out if you’ve got enough charisma and if your personality is able to maybe charm the pants off of somebody into giving you a key to get you into a place.
If you’ve got the ability to intuit secrets that are hidden around a space. It’s always at the mercy of that thing. I would like when I perform as an actor in a scripted project that people watching me believe that I’m making the discoveries as they’re happening. But the truth is, it’s memorized, it’s written, you know what’s going to happen. So you just have to find a way to manufacture and create that sense of discovery. With D&D, it’s legit and it’s really fun. It’s a great game, Dungeons and Dragons for so many reasons. I think it’s always been a way of socializing for people who maybe don’t have the confidence or the same ability to just walk into say a keggar and be social.
It’s also a way to explore your imagination and to stretch your imagination because everything… There is no… Even though sometimes we use die cast metal figurines to represent our characters, or we use a map to represent the board, I mean the world in which we’re exploring, it’s all here. And I’m really excited. My son rolled his first character recently and slowly, he’s only nine, but dipping our toes into the exploration of that is really fun.
Faster, Purple Worm threads that needle between comedy, unexpected heart, and tragedy really well.
David Dastmalchian: Well, comedy and tragedy are just two sides of the same coin. That’s life. And the absurdity of being hapless heroes up against insurmountable odds is like the absurdity of being human beings up against the insurmountable reality of the fact that we’re all going to die at some point. That’s the comedy of life, and if you have the wherewithal and the presence of mind to be able to find the humor in that, I think you’re going to have a much more successful life because I think a lot of the things that we fear in life do come back to death because we fear death and being alone.
And I think in playing a game like D&D, it’s a great exercise in using your imagination, walking through these absurd scenarios, falling on your face, being like, what happened to Matt with his character in the story like tripping and falling and inciting an explosion of massive catastrophic consequence. That’s life, man. That’s life. It’s tragic, it’s scary, and then all of a sudden you go, holy sh-t, we never had a chance anyway, so let’s just enjoy the ride.
Is there anything from the Purple Worm experience that you want to take into any of your future projects, be it like a film or television program or a comic that you’re writing?
David Dastmalchian: There’s a lot of stuff from that experience. The two things that I love the most was it was this affirmation for me to see Matt and all of his buddies creating something that I know they love and that they share together. For me, again, going back to this reality of how short life is, so it’s like make sure you make the time to go to Disney. Make sure you make the time to tell the people you love, you love them. Make sure you make the time to just have a stupid day with no motive other than to watch old movies or eat your favorite Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup shapes, whatever the thing is.
So seeing that, I take that away because I’ve been doing that a lot in recent years. I started my own company called Good Fiend Films, and I’ve been being very intentional about what acting projects I’ve taken on, because I want to spend time with the people I love and create things with the people I love and I think you’re going to make the best work when you do that. So watching Matt and his buddies do this thing and have so much fun together was inspiring. And then, of course, speaking of Matt, I want to take him and bring him into everything that I make and do. I love him so much as a performer and as a creative force of energy in this universe. And I would love to do some heavy duty scene work with the guy. I think he’s one of the most versatile actors there is in Hollywood.
He can be so funny. He can do wildly broad and yet still authentic characters, and then he can bring it all in and do these really subtle gut-wrenching, dramatic performances. It’s really wonderful. So I want to pull him into… Steve, I’m always trying to do stuff with Steve, and that’s, I want to make stuff with my friends. And as for my comic books, constantly always being open to discovery. I’m writing. Well, I write a comic book for Dark Horse called Count Crowley, and the newest volume is now in release. So the first issue has come out, the next issue is about to come out in another month.
And the way I write it, I want it to feel like I’m playing D&D where I never really know what’s going to happen. And I try to dare myself and challenge myself to not take the safe route of planning everything out in a way that I know exactly how things need to land. I like to take risks because then I think when people are turning the pages of the comic and discovering what happens next, they get that sense of wonder and thrill that we had when we were little kids where you just didn’t know what was around every corner, what was about to happen.
I’m writing a comic with Todd McFarland, an image right now called Knights versus Samurai. And that one, I had this big idea very inspired by years of Dungeons and Dragons play and so motivated by the time that I spent in D&D campaigns playing. I played a lot of human characters. I’ve played Dragon Born, I’ve done halflings, but in human character form being the equivalent of a barbarian or a knight to me, and I always thought that there’s a fair amount of Samurai Ninja and more Eastern influence dragon mythology within Dungeon and Dragons, but it’s like just a small part of that world.
And I always thought, how cool would it be to see Knights clashing with Samurai while they’re trying to duck the fire of dive bombing dragons? And that’s the comic I’m creating right now, and I am so excited for people to see it. I think people that love D&D and that love Faster, Purple Worm are going to really gravitate to the series. I hope so. I don’t know. Who knows?
I’m very excited to check out Count Crowley. I know you’ve talked about your interest in adapting it at some point. What would a television adaptation of Count Crowley look like in a dream scenario?
David Dastmalchian: My dream is a live action series where we find this actor that has that dynamic range, the kind of woman who brings to her roles, the complexity that… Because Jerry Barman, who’s the hero, who is Count Crowley, she is funny, acerbic, quick-witted, a badass, completely in a state of mental disarray, depression and anxiety. She’s spiraling so hard with her addiction to alcohol. So she’s both comedic and tragic simultaneously while she’s having to figure out how the hell to defend herself and the people she loves against Supernatural forces.
So I think about the kind of show that looks inspired by or evokes all the stuff that we loved about the universal monster movies, the movies like Monster Squad and Fright Night and all of that, but with that dramatic and powerful character building that you find in shows like Glow, which I loved, or The Bear or so many wonderful shows. So yeah, that’s my dream. And then, of course, that somebody will let me play one of the vampires probably, although there’s a couple of roles I would love to play in the world of Count Crowley.
You also mentioned your love of Marvel, and I know you’ve been in the MCU as well as James Gunn’s DCU. Is there a specific character that you’d either maybe want to play because there’s the animation element or even one that you would maybe want to write for a movie or something?
David Dastmalchian: In the world of Marvel, my favorite characters are a lot of those heroes and anti-heroes that were creeping around in the shadows, lurking around and kicking it with groups on the fringe, like the Defenders, the Midnight Suns, the West Coast Avengers. So I love characters like Morbius, and I think that Moon Knight is one of the coolest comic book characters ever created. I think that Tigre would be so cool to see explored in a new way. Yeah, I would love that.
I’d love to maybe find a new offshoot of more obscure heroes that are kicking it around in the shadows. Who could take, maybe if it’s not a rebirth of the West Coast Avengers, because they just did that actually recently, but in a more fun, bright kind of eighties way. I would like to do it in a, I don’t even know. I’d love to get a chance to write some Moon Night stories. I think Werewolf by Night, such a fantastic character. I love Dr. Strange. I love The Hulk.
I think the Invincible Hulk was one of the better comic runs of the last couple of years. Hell yeah, man. And you name it. There’s probably no character that if I had the chance to get to write or create on that I wouldn’t be excited about. I love that world so much.
And then you were also part of Oppenheimer, which seems like a frontrunner for the Oscars. How does it feel to be a part of that with award season upon us?
David Dastmalchian: It is surreal. It takes me back to my love of comic books and my gratitude, my boundless fountain of gratitude for the life that I live as an actor and creator, because comic books and cinema have always been such a deep love of mine. The fact that the first time I was ever in a feature film got to be one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and the fact that he cast me in that film changed my life, gave me an opportunity to be a working actor in a way I never dreamed possible. And now how many years later, 15 years later, I got to be in a just glorious soaring opus of cinema and to be able to be in another project with him, it’s a dream. It’s wild.
I love your Faster, Purple Worm episode. Honestly, I just love all the work you do.
David Dastmalchian: Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, I’m excited. Once you get to read Crowley, let me know what you think, because the first two volumes are now available for digital, or you could get Intrade paperback, and then you get caught up on the story, and then the new volume that’s being released now, it’s so exciting to me.
I think Lucas is doing the best work of his career, and I hope my writing is the best it’s ever been, and I’m dying for you to check it out. Let me know what you think when you do, and we could talk about it. We could come back and do another interview, and then hopefully when the show gets made into something that we can all watch, we could talk about that.
About Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!
“Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!” serves up comedic mayhem with tabletop gaming stars and celebrity guest players, including Seth Green, Anjali Bhimani, Skeet Ulrich, Sean Gunn, Mica Burton, Patton Oswalt and series co-creator Matthew Lillard. Perfect for seasoned gamers and newbies alike, every episode features an improvised, stand-alone story along with epic, hilarious character deaths
Check out our other Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! interviews:
- Matthew Lillard
- Bill Rehor, Jon Ciccolini, Charlie Rehor, and Paul Shapiro
- Matthew Lillard and Bill Rehor
- Anjali Bhimani
- Aabria Iyengar & Gina DeVivo
- Deborah Ann Woll
- Jasmine Bhullar
- Matthew Lillard on episode 7
- Alicia Marie
