Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!, the Beadle & Grimm’s Dungeons & Dragons series on the Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures FAST channel, which is available on Amazon Freevee and Plex brings together a new group of heroes each week for an impossible adventure. Every episode features a new cast, which includes Matthew Lillard, Deborah Ann Woll, Seth Gree, Aabria Iyengar, or Anjali Bhimani. The series was created by Beadle & Grimm’s founders, Lillard, Bill Rehor, Paul Shapiro, Jon Ciccolini, and Charlie Rehor.
The newest episode takes place in a town called Waterdeep, where four heroes must step up to protect the town. In order to keep everyone safe, they must fight the monsters that come through the gate and stay alive for thirty seconds. However, as level-one characters, this is a doomed task. Although the ending is ensured, the comedy and heart that these heroes show mark their deaths as noble sacrifices instead of being wiped out without purpose. The episode stars Deborah Ann Woll, Luis Carazo, Steve Agee, and Amy Vorpahl, with Jon Ciccolini as the Dungeon Master.
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Screen Rant interviewed Deborah Ann Woll about her appearance in Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! episode 5. She explained what she loves about Dungeons & Dragons, why she chooses the voices that she uses for her characters, and why she was excited by the live studio audience. Woll also shared her thoughts about potentially reprising her Critical Role character Twiggy in Mighty Nein and her desire to see Karen Page’s story continue, possibly in Daredevil: Born Again.
Deborah Ann Woll Talks Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!
Screen Rant: I love Faster, Purple Worm!. It is the funniest show, while also still having a shocking amount of heart. What were your first thoughts when you heard the concept, “You’re going to play a level one character, but fight some of the biggest monsters in D&D?”
Deborah Ann Woll: So I participated in the very first Beadle & Grimm play test of Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! It was at a D&D celebration event during the pandemic, but we all came in, did our testing and everything to do it live in a studio. And I played Dr. Mafalda … Anyway, I collected scat. I was very excited.
So the best thing for me about this concept is all of those wild ideas that you have that in no way could you translate to a longer campaign, this is perfect, because you get to do your most difficult voice that would destroy your vocal cords if you had to do it for more than an hour, your most ridiculous concepts, and really get some mileage out of it, right? It’s really all about character and role play and being silly, and … I don’t know, I think it’s such a great opportunity when you don’t have to be too precious about it.
I completely agree. I have to talk to you about the voices. The voices are amazing.
Deborah Ann Woll: Thank you.
They always have me cracking up. Can you talk about what inspires you to choose these voices that you’ve done?
Deborah Ann Woll: Sure. I’m not very good at accents, I can’t really do accents, but I can be silly. I’m a goofball by trade. And so, yeah, I do find that because I don’t feel confident doing accents, I tend to gravitate more towards just silly voices, cartoony funny voices, and really choosing characters that are as far from who I am as I can get, but probably in a way that I’m not even really fully ready to admit are really just a truer version of who I am deep inside.
So we had Franklin, I did in my first episode, and that’s probably who I will grow into. I’m very clerical myself. I like order and organization. We’ve got Arnold this time around. Arnold is a nerd, and I know nothing about that. I clearly could never relate.
And then I think … I can’t remember quite her name coming up, but again, I’m sure these are just dormant aspects of myself that are just dying to get out and have some airtime.
I love it and then what inspired the idea for a tortle bard who also loves doing magic tricks?
Deborah Ann Woll: Yes. Yes, magic tricks. I think I had this image in my head, I think from another D&D project I’m working on, and this may have adjusted now that I don’t think this character exists anymore, and I think I was just missing … I was like, “Oh man, I’m not going to get to use that character for this other project, so, oh, perfect.”
The tortle element I think came in later, but I love the idea of playing with an awkward teenage magician who just loves magic, but it’s not even … It’s not magic like D&D, it’s just handkerchiefs and cups with balls and sleight of hand. It’s just actual magic. Because I think we all go through that phase, if you’re a little bit nerdy like me, where you’re like, “Ooh, I could learn to do magic tricks.”
So I don’t know. I wanted to play with an awkward teenager who loves magic tricks, and so he’s got that bard quality within him that is charismatic and wants to entertain and bring people joy, but who’s maybe not super great at it yet, but is trying nonetheless.
I love it. I also for sure had a magic set when I was a kid.
Deborah Ann Woll: Of course. I still pass by those at Target and I’m like, “Ooh, should I?” It’s only like $28.99. I could spend that on a fun evening, right?
And then does your approach to playing D&D in this sort of environment where you know it’s an hour, you know your character’s going to die, does that change how your gameplay ends up being?
Deborah Ann Woll: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people have asked me about the show and I’m like, “It’s great, it is absolutely D&D, but if you’re looking to learn how to play D&D or see what typical games are, this might not be it.” But in a way, that’s its charm, right? The charm of it is that it is … I think they’ve described it in the press as being a combination between D&D live play and Whose Line? And I do like that. I think this has a lot more improvisation, it’s a lot more follow your instincts.
And I’ve always said the best D&D games are the ones where you’re not stuck in your sheet, where you’re playing from your own imagination and your own heart, and then you use your sheet to support those ideas. And this is a really … I mean, this is the ultimate of that, where really you’re just like, “What do I want to do? Oh, I guess I can kind of do it using this.” Or they’ll just make you roll for it.
So it makes you bolder, for sure, because you only have 10 hit points; why not spend seven of them before the combat even starts? Because you’re going to get wiped down in one hit anyways. So you can start combat with a single hit point and it won’t matter, which is pretty freeing.
Definitely. And then can you talk to me a little bit about the live studio audience element and how that kind of amps up the energy for you as a player and a performer?
Deborah Ann Woll: Yeah, as a performer, for sure. I mean, one, to have that in the moment reaction. I mean, I came from theater. That energy in the room, it bolsters you, you know? I mean, it’s one thing when you do film and television and that kind of work in a studio, you get very engrossed and immersed in these small moments and you don’t do a lot of performative. But again, what’s really perfect for this particular game is that performative aspect, that sense that this is for us to have fun, but it’s also to translate it to you and welcome an audience into the joke.
Yeah. It really made it fun. It made it clear. It puts a little bit of pressure on it. One of my favorite moments from this upcoming episode is the lullaby that my mother sang to me in the original tortle. And when they said they were going to make me sing, I was like, “Oh God, I don’t want to sing.” But I was like, “You know what? I can get out of this. I won’t have to sing if I do it in the original tortle.” And it came out … You know, those moments that you could never anticipate end up then being your favorite moments.
And my favorite story about this, and I hope they don’t mind my sharing this; after the fact, after I did my lullaby in the original tortle, they had me sign something for the composition that if they used it online, I wasn’t going to be like, “That’s my song that I created.” And I was like, “It’s just spitting. You can have it.” But I thought that was so funny that there was a concern that this spitting song that I wrote on the whim in that moment might hold a copyright.
I love that they thought you were going to recognize that if it was ever used,
Deborah Ann Woll: If they were to sample it in a later … Yeah. I was like, “You can just hire someone else to spit. You don’t have to take my piece.” But it was very funny. It was very cute. I was like, “That’s very cute that you think that I have that much ownership over my tortle song.”
I love that. And then on the flip side of the very kind of silly, what did it feel like when Luis brought the big kind of emotional beat at the end when all you who went before him were like, “Let’s go comedic?”
Deborah Ann Woll: Yeah. Well, in the moment you’re like, “Oh man, dude, you’re going to get the big ‘ah’ moment”, and we all brushed it off. But it’s actually perfect and it’s exactly what he should have done. Because if we all had done a silly thing, it would’ve sort of ended on that silly note.
But he concluded it, he rounded it out. And I think it is exactly what you said, which is this show is that combination of comedy as well as heart, and I think Luis is all heart. And this show is such a good showcase for both of those aspects of this game, and I’m glad that he brought that in and reminded us all that that’s also a piece of it.
And then what from this experience would you like to take into future D&D games or shows?
Deborah Ann Woll: Hmm. That’s a great question. I mean, probably that devil may care aspect of it. You know, just because you might not die doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t kind of play with everything you’ve got. One thing I always like to talk about with players is that sometimes when you have no spell slots left, you’ve used all of your features and your traits, that’s sometimes when you’re the most creative, because again, it has to come from you, it doesn’t necessarily come off of your sheet.
And so I do like the idea as a dungeon master pushing players to their brink, where they don’t have anything left and have to come up with creative solutions. And then as a player, which I don’t get to do very often, which is another wonderful aspect of doing this show, but as a player, taking that on and saying, “Hey, even if I’m pretty sure I’m going to live through 20 levels of this, why not live every single day in this D&D campaign as if it’s my last, and just use everything, give it all I got?”
I love that. I’m a big actual play fan, so I’m a big fan of failing forward when they roll a one and it’s not just that you didn’t succeed; figure out what happened. When you lose everything, figure out what’s next. I think that’s such a cool takeaway from it.
Deborah Ann Woll: Yeah.
And then I’m also a huge Critical Role nerd, and I love your part as Twiggy. And we have the Mighty Nein series coming up. Do you want Twiggy to get their big moment in the Mighty Nein series?
Deborah Ann Woll: I don’t know. I mean, that’s up to them. I’m always happy for Twiggy to make an appearance. She’s a blast to play. Again, talk about little Deborah needing a voice; that was Twiggy for me. So yeah, I mean, I’m such a fan of hers.
I’ve been so floored by the love people have for Twiggy after just one episode. So yeah, I mean, hey, I’m available. They have my number. They know me. We’re good friends. If they ever want Twiggy to be a part of it again, they just have to ask.
I hope that she is because having her beat the big scary character and having no one see is amazing.
Deborah Ann Woll: I killed a dragon. No one believed me, but I did it. I am Twiggy the Dragons Slayer.
We just need a spin-off of that. Twiggy the Dragon Slayer.
Deborah Ann Woll: Yeah, Twiggy the Dragon Slayer. It’s true. It’s not even a lie. Yeah.
Just endlessly trying to convince people that’s what happened.
Deborah Ann Woll: It’s true. I did it. I was alone, but it happened.
I love it. And then one of the things that’s so cool about Faster, Purple Worm! is it has a different cast every time, and it’s such a diverse group of longtime players, new players. Were there any players you didn’t get the opportunity to play with that you would really like to if there was a season two?
Deborah Ann Woll: Oh, gosh, that is a great question. I mean, yeah, sure. All of them. I don’t know. It was really great to have new people at the table every time. And a number of times, I think especially for myself, right before we went on, I would just kind of grab someone and be like, “Hey, you want to have known each other beforehand? Let’s just do … ” Just so you have a buddy.
Sometimes it’s always easier, especially on live shows like this, to just have somebody who will, ‘Yes, and’ you. So yeah, that’s always been great. And it wasn’t like … I didn’t really know Luis very well before this show, and so Luis was a fantastic new person to get to know and whose company to enjoy and to kind of team up in that way. So yeah, I hope everyone who was on it that I didn’t get to play with. I know that’s a cop out answer, but it’s the truth.
I love it. And then you mentioned that you end up DMing more than playing. Would you want to DM an episode if there was a season two?
Deborah Ann Woll: Absolutely. It’s just about how much time it takes. It takes so much work to come up with a game. But yes, as long as the timing worked out, I would love to. It’d be really fun to run something.
And then what was kind of the most surprising part of this show for you versus … Because you play a lot of D&D. So what was surprising about this versus the other things you’ve been in?
Deborah Ann Woll: Maybe the magic item piece of it.
Hmm.
Deborah Ann Woll: I was impressed … Almost all of the episodes, as far as I remember, had fairly high powered magic items that they offered to us to use in creative ways. And again, most campaigns, because they go on and on, you kind of hoard those magic items.
You kind of keep them and save them. You’re like, “Oh, I’ll find the perfect moment.” And again, because of the devil may care attitude of this type of a game, we used them, we squandered them. And so that’s fun. It’s fun to be able to squander a legendary or wondrous item. When else do you get to do that?
Yes, that was … I love the, “Nah, I don’t think so” cloak.
Deborah Ann Woll: Yes.
That was great.
Deborah Ann Woll: It’s hard. You have to, “Come on, everybody. Help me out here.”
And then what inspired … Because I also love that you got to play a secondary character in this by voicing the ax. What inspired that moment? Because you pulled that voice out fast.
Deborah Ann Woll: Okay. So I love a Valley Girl accent. I do think it’s tremendously fun to play. If you know me and my work at all, I had a show called Relics and Rarities that I’m enormously proud of, and one of my villains had a Valley Girl accent. She was fantastic. She was an evil, mad scientist doctor, but she talked like this. And I think it’s really fantastic when the person who’s trying to kill you sounds like that.
So yes, it’s very accessible for me. And again, there’s the other thing about voices too for me, even more than accents; because it doesn’t sound like you, it just gives you freedom and permission to say things and take those leaps. So yeah, especially for the ax, it felt like a really easy way to bring in a character voice that I knew very well and felt confident in, and then give her an opportunity to really up the game a bit.
I loved it. I loved that you attuned by saying, “You’re so pretty.” That was great.
Deborah Ann Woll: “You’re so pretty. You’re so pretty.” Yeah, I think that was the dying words of that character. I was like, “But I’m so pretty.”
I love it. And then I’m curious kind of what do you take from everything you learn and experience in D&D into your onscreen acting roles, be it television or film?
Deborah Ann Woll: Hmm. Improvisation, devil make care attitude, all of these things that we bring into it. I think also a love and trust of oneself. You know, we’re talking a lot about … you know, acting on one hand is transformative, but really it’s transformative … It can be transformative, and it’s much more about discovering human truths and potentially truths about yourself.
So in the same way that I’m saying all three of the characters that I played on Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! are so different than who I am in my everyday life, they are just aspects of me that are amplified, and that potentially I don’t feel comfortable amplifying in my daily life because I’m scared of being judged or criticized or not liked.
And I think then when I step forward into my acting, to one, take that psychological lesson, that the face that we present to the world is not the full picture of who we are, and that I can allow all aspects of myself to be present in these characters; that it’s okay for my very logical, reasonable character to have a goofy side, and that we are not one thing, we are multifaceted, especially the ones that are worth watching on television.
So yeah, I would say that really the permission to play and the permission to bring myself to the role, even the aspects that I’m a little insecure about.
I love that. And I have to ask this next question because otherwise my editor will yell at me.
Deborah Ann Woll: Oh no, don’t yell. Don’t yell.
There’s been reports that Daredevil: Born Again is getting kind of reworked-
Deborah Ann Woll: Oh yeah.
And I’m really hoping we can get you back in it. Where would you like to see Karen pick up if we see her in the series?
Deborah Ann Woll: I mean, look, playing Karen Page is one of the great roles of my career so far, and I have such enormous love and respect for her, for myself, for the story that we created together. And I think any iteration of Karen that comes back, if she comes back, if it’s me, if it’s not me, if it’s in comic books, if it’s in 50 years, whatever it is, I just hope that it continues to honor her and that you’re never just the sidekick.
You might not see the Karen Page story, but she’s having a whole TV show on her own that no one filmed. And make sure that for our characters who are not superheroes or not the lead fighter in that way, that we just continue to honor that they have full lives. That’s what I really appreciated about my time playing Karen Page. And I would hope that if I got to do it again, or if it continues, that people would have the same care for her.
I really hope it does because you’re one of my favorite parts of Daredevil.
Deborah Ann Woll: Oh, thank you so much. I’m so proud. I really am. I just loved … I loved working on that so much, and she’s such a cool person. So yeah, I miss her.
It’s interesting that you kind of talk about characters that aren’t necessarily the expected hero, main character and wanting to make sure they play a full life, because that is kind of what Faster, Purple Worm! is. It’s the characters that you don’t see, the NPCs of this world and getting to really fulfill their story. Why do you think that’s something that you connect with so much?
Deborah Ann Woll: It’s funny that you say that right now too, because I have this fascination with human commoners. I have this thing where any D&D campaign that I write needs to be accomplishable by human commoners on some level, right? Because it should be just as much ingenuity based as it is magic or special traits based. And it could be a human commoner at level eight kind of thing, but I love that idea. I love that idea that we are all special. You don’t have to have been slathered in nuclear waste in order to be special, that really …
D&D, and I’ve said this a million times, I’m such a broken record, but D&D for me is such a lovely, safe way to practice being a hero, to practice protecting the innocent and stopping the bad guys from hurting people. And in real life, it’s so hard sometimes to take that leap and be brave because we feel so defenseless and unprotected. And yet in a game when you have shield and you have magic and all these things, it’s a little easier to take that step. So I like that idea of practicing it in that safety net.
And so for me, a character like Karen Page, like our level one characters, like a human commoner, you’re just you, right? They’re so much closer to who each of us is in our daily lives, and yet we still make the heroic leap. Arnold still walked in to that gate and fought as hard as he could to save … Was it Waterdeep? Is that where we were?
Yeah.
Deborah Ann Woll: To save Waterdeep, right? And he succeeded in a way, right? I mean, he did. They did save Waterdeep even if he perished in that. And I think Arnold’s a lot closer to any person walking on the street than my 12th level whatever I’m playing. So yeah, I really do like that. I like inspiring all of us to really believe in ourselves and our capabilities.
I love that. And all you’ve made me want to do is play in a D&D game that you’re DMing. That’s what this interview has been for me now.
Deborah Ann Woll: Yay. We’ll make it happen.
I would love that. Thank you so much for talking to me.
Deborah Ann Woll: Thank you.
The episode’s so fun. You’re great at all the episodes I’ve seen so far.
Deborah Ann Woll: Thank you.
And I just want you to do voices forever because that’s one of my favorite parts.
Deborah Ann Woll: We’ll keep … Yeah. I want to encourage more people to do voices and … You can do accents, but also do voices, right? It’s a little … Do both. It’s okay if you can only do one. I can only do, so ..
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
