In the latest episode of Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! Matthew Lillard takes on a new role as Dungeon Master. Lillard created the series with Beadle & Grimm’s co-founders, Bill Rehor, Jon Ciccolini, Paul Shapiro, and Charlie Rehor. The series follows a new party of first-level characters as they set out on a doomed quest, inevitably facing off against a monster far beyond their abilities.
Matthew Lillard’s table includes Seth Green, Michelle Nguyen Bradley, Freddie Wong, and Noura Ibrahim for an adventure in Waterdeep. With each episode including a new group of players, Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! includes a phenomenal cast including Aabria Iyengar, David Dastmalchian, Anjali Bhimani, Skeet Ulrich, Sean Gunn, Mica Burton, and Patton Oswalt. The series balances comedy and an unexpected amount of pathos in a one-hour adventure that always ends in tragedy.
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Screen Rant interviewed Matthew Lillard about being a Dungeon Master for Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! He discussed playing with a table that leans into comedy and why he chose Xanathar the Beholder as his big bad. Lillard also explained why he loves being a producer on the series, teased a much longer version of this episode, and why he was excited to set his episode in Waterdeep.
Matthew Lillard Talks Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! Episode 7
Screen Rant: I have loved watching you on Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! and seeing you DM was a whole nother level of fun.
Matthew Lillard: Really? Why?
We’ve seen you as a player, but seeing you tell the story and be able to maneuver with the players in a new way was really, really cool to experience.
Matthew Lillard: Oh, good. Oh, thank you so much. I was so nervous. I was terrified. It was one of those things that I DM all the time, but doing it for the show, the amount of prep we were going through it and I was playing all these other games, I was really worried about it. And so in fact, I missed the game before, which is “Everyone Dies in the Styes”, which is a Seth Green game, which is our premier episode, and I missed it because I was backstage giving myself a pep talk.
Well, it worked because you nailed it.
Matthew Lillard: Oh, good. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. That makes me really happy, actually.
Can you talk to me a little bit about what inspired the story for this one with you and how they were trying to join the Zhentarim Network?
Matthew Lillard: Yeah. Well, I loved the Waterdeep setting. I mean, I wanted to build it around something I was comfortable with, and I felt like the factions that were there… I was responsible for, with Beadle and Grimm’s, I was at that point the lead on that Waterdeep box. So I read the adventure multiple times. While I never played it, I’ve played in and around it before, and so I felt comfortable in that world building aspect of it. I loved the fact that I was playing with such great players.
So yeah, it was about… I was the longest show we shot, which nobody’s obviously going to know, but one of the things about the show is that we always aim for an hour. We usually went over, a little over an hour, an hour five, hour seven, hour 10, and we knew that the show had cut back to 48 minutes ’cause every show is 48 minutes. So we were really terrified. An hour 10 to 48 seemed like, “Oh my God, we’ll never be able to cut it.” I think I was an hour and 40 minutes long. I mean, I went really long ’cause I set up all these very cinematic things that I thought was really great.
And I also started by saying that… I stood up in front of the audience and I said, “I’m really nervous.” And I wanted that to be a moment of saying not only to my players, but to the crew, to the audience, that if you’re nervous, it’s okay to be nervous. That’s part of leading a game like this. Every time you go into a DnD game, I always find I have butterflies, but I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if I’m prepared enough, I don’t know if I’m good… What if I let everyone down?
So we actually, in cutting the episode down, cut out a lot of stuff, and one of the things that made them, as producer, I went back and I said, “I think we should keep that. I think we should keep that for the people out there that want to DM and are just nervous.” So yeah.
I really like that moment, especially ’cause I feel like Purple Worm is such a good entry point for people to learn about DnD, and I thought that was a really good moment for people that have either never DMed or not really played before to know, “Oh, people that are doing this professionally are still nervous.” So I thought that was a really good decision to include that.
Matthew Lillard: Oh, good, thanks. Yeah, we did too, and I think everyone was fine with doing it, adding it back in. I think all the editors that saw it were like, that’s three minutes we can get rid of. We’ll take that chunk.
I also now want the extended cut edition that is a double episode.
Matthew Lillard: We’ve talked about that. I mean, the problem is, is that you’d have to go back and sweeten every episode, like the sound mix, and you really have to go back and re-edit everything. But we have talked about doing that.
Ooh, I like that. And then what has been your favorite aspect of being on the show? Did you like being a DM, a player, or producer the best?
Matthew Lillard: That’s a good question. I think my favorite part is the creative process with my guys at Beadle and Grimm’s, so being a producer. The idea of having this idea for a show, playing it a couple times, pitching it, building out, really eOne has been a great partner, but the negotiation process with that, working with the agents, working with trying to get the best deal possible, and then going out and doing the live show at Guild Hall, really trying to build the show, try to break the show internally.
All the things that went into it, all the pre-planning, all of the in-the-trenches stuff, I thought was really exciting. Look, the performance is great, but to me, those are my best friends in the world. That process was really rewarding. And it’s this idea of having a dream and seeing it come true, that arc. It was really powerful.
I love that. And then I want to talk to you a little bit about the table that you played with. I thought Seth Green’s character was probably my favorite because it felt so Monty Python of a murder bunny. Can you talk to me a little bit about leaning into the comedy with these characters because they felt like the epitome of silly murder hobo?
Matthew Lillard: Yeah, it is, especially Seth. With somebody like Seth specifically, you really have to get out of the way. I think that’s one of the things that John, who’s our resident DM on the show, and for us as Beadle and Grimm’s, giving them opportunities to be incredible, setting it up for them, a chance for them to be great, is really your job in that situation. And I don’t play that way. I find that I play really… I try to find comedy out of life and death stakes, not try to play comedy outright. Let the comedy be born out of the circumstances. And I think they did a good job. I think Michelle came in as a puddle, and I was like, the Water Genasi is not a puddle.
There was a couple times I had to bring it back a little, but all in all, I thought they did a great job. I think they accomplished the task. I liked the way they set it up. And at some point, realizing that we were way over on time, drawing up, stop, really trying to control how that whole thing was going to play out for me was something that you can never plan for. I mean, I think one of the great things about the game of Dungeons and Dragons is that you can make all the plans in the world, but they’re all going to be thrown out the window as soon as your players are given an opportunity to screw them up.
And so that was a great example. I had all these ideas of how things were going to work, and then along comes this murder bunny and you’re like, “Oh, all of it’s gone.” So all of it is not what I expected, but that’s the great part about being prepared to DM a group like that.
And then what inspired your decision to have them be second level? Because we’ve only had first level characters so far.
Matthew Lillard: Yeah. So that was cut, I think, out of the episode, which was I stood up and I said, “I have played this game, every single iteration of the game that’s ever been played.” Is it in there? I haven’t seen it.
Yeah, that’s in the episode.
Matthew Lillard: Oh, yeah. It was funny. So every single iteration of the game from the very beginning, from the very first time we even considered it, and we played around the table at my house, to the last game before the TV show, I was in every single iteration of the show. And so I’ve died over a thousand times playing this stupid game. So as a DM, I thought it’d be funny to introduce them as second level to give them a better chance to live ’cause I was like, “This is our chance. We’re going to make it. One of you is going to make it through ’cause I’m DMing.” So I thought that would be a funny little hit. Spoiler alert, they do not make it through. They all die.
No. Yeah, they all die. Just epically wiped out.
Matthew Lillard: Yeah, not a chance. No chance.
Why did you want Xanathar the Beholder to be the villain in your episode?
Matthew Lillard: Because he’s iconic. There’s only one beholder with a name, so it’s got to Xanathar. I mean, I thought it was like… Knowing the Waterdeep world, it’s like having Strahd. I mean, imagine a show, if you will, that’s Strahd, ends up fighting these first level characters. That could happen. So the idea of having a named character, pulling from the lore and the legend that people know, we thought the fans would get a kick out of it, and so we went for it.
That’s super fun. And then I am curious, so you have, with Quest’s End, this world that you’re building with the fantasy saga, would you want to set an episode, if there’s a season two, in that world?
Matthew Lillard: I don’t think so. It’s an interesting idea. I think that with Quest End, we are… If people don’t know, I have a whiskey company. That whiskey company has on the back of… That whiskey company has an ongoing saga so every single bottle that drops, we continue a story from the very first bottle to the 16th bottle. So it’s this whole saga. And the first drop is paladin, and second is rogue, third is warlock, fourth is dragon. And so each one of them has that character class and a character in that journey.
To mix the streams across the streams like that seems like it’s probably not a great idea, and I feel like the world… That may be too inside. You’d have to be a fan of both. And while that would be amazing, that’s not always the case. I think that we’re better served dealing in this incredibly rich tapestry of already proven out IP with the DnD world. And I think that’s part of the fun of the show. Y
ou’re seeing Ravenloft and you’re seeing Waterdeep and you’re getting these looks at different world… Greyhawk, the world of Greyhawk’s represented, Eberron’s represented. So you’ve got all these different world settings, which I think, it makes it part of the fun for the viewer, for the players and the viewers.
I get you. And then what did you take from your experience working on big franchises like Scream, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Scooby-Doo into this project as a producer?
Matthew Lillard: Yeah, I think that the thing that I’ve learned as I’ve grown, especially with the creation of Beadle and Grimm’s and with Quest’s End, which is if you build something passionately for fan bases that are passionate about what they love, then people will come out and support you. I mean, Five Nights at Freddy’s is a great example. I think that Jason Blum said it best. He’s like, “We’re not making this movie for everybody. We’re making this movie for Five Nights at Freddy’s fans.”
And so the idea of doing Faster Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! specifically for people who love Dungeon and Dragons, you’re building content for people who are passionate, I think that’s a really strong business model. But I also think it’s super satisfying, as somebody who’s part of the creative process, to build something I’m passionate about for people who are like me, gives my world joy. And so to me, if you’re doing work that you love and it’s satisfying you in a deep way, that’s as good as it gets.
I completely agree. And then so you’ve had the audience from when you were a player. What was it like having the audience there as a DM?
Matthew Lillard: Great. I think that the more you play the show, the more you really understand how powerful it is to work with the audience. We played at GenCon, which was a huge audience. PAX Unplugged, it was sold out. We had 600 people packed in this auditorium. So as the show’s growing, we’re performing at San Francisco Sketch Fest on this… I’m dropping… Oh no, it’s out there actually. But we’re performing at San Francisco Sketch Fest on January 19th, and that will be hopefully a PAX audience.
So the more you play with an audience, the more you can play into them, the more you can use them, the more that informs you, informs your choices. It makes you perform at a higher level. It really elevates everything. So yeah, the good news is that as a DM, I wasn’t scared to look at them and engage. I think that playing so much has given me that confidence.
I love that. And then can you remember, were there any moments that had to be cut for time that were really hard for you to let go?
Matthew Lillard: Yes. Yeah. I went through their first heist together, how they became friends. All that’s gone. So that’s gone. And then I did this thing where I preset the ending. So it was like, you are walking down this hallway and the lights go out. And then I smash cut to them waking up in their beds. So I basically gave them end at the beginning. So that was a fun device that clearly did not work in the time allotted.
I was one of the only shows ever that they had to pull a tape change, which is they had to stop everything and come out and give me directions to get it back on tempo. And as they did that, I saw Johnny walk out. I’m like, “I know I’m too long. I know. I know it’s too long. I will speed up.”
I so want the extended version of this.
Matthew Lillard: Oh, it’s crazy. What you really want is me talking to John, “Get out of here. Go away.”
What for you has been the most rewarding part of not only making this show, but seeing audiences respond to it?
Matthew Lillard: Just knowing that we came up with this idea as five buddies and had this really cool, what we thought was, a novel idea and a novel approach, and then building it out and working through it. And the thing is about the show, while eOne was a great partner, everyone that came on board, top to bottom, asked the question, “Every single episode, every single character dies? Does that work?” And really asking ourselves internally if we were right or wrong.
I’ll never forget the night before we went into our first week of production, I said, “Well, we are totally effed here, boys.” And they were like, “What happened? What’d we miss? What’d we forget?” I was like, “No, we literally got every single thing we wanted.” We got a live accompaniment. And Scott an was an incredible addition. We’ve got a live audience, which we did not have, and we really fought for, and we finally got, which was great. And then every element of the show from first level characters to everyone dying, all the things in the show, and a host and the host being Bill, there was a lot of things along the way that we really had to fight for, we got.
And that at the end of the day, if the show didn’t work, it was a hundred percent on us. And luckily for us, we think the show is a love letter to Dungeons and Dragons, and we hope if anyone’s out there and hasn’t seen the show, if you happen to see, “Oh, Matthew Lillard interviewed by Caitlin…” Look, my hope is that these little, whether it’s Seth doing one of these or I know David’s doing it, or Alicia’s doing, we have all these people coming to talk to you about the show, and we’re hoping that Deborah Wall, who did it last week… A big piece of announcement.
We hope that you find the show ’cause it’s a love letter to Dungeons and Dragons, and our hope in doing this press is that we are this beacon that you find, and you come find the shows, ’cause they’re maybe hard to find on platforms, maybe difficult to find on platforms, but now all the shows are available and you can watch them anytime on demand. So yeah, so come check them out. They’re great.
How do you guys decide the makeup of each table? Because the chemistry works really well, and it seems like it’s not necessarily… Some of them are people who know each other really well, but some feel like people who are playing at the table together for the first time.
Matthew Lillard: Every table except for the Glass Cannon Show with Troy DM, that was people he plays with all the time. A lot of that’s luck. A lot of that’s luck. A lot of that is the spirit and how we went into it. There wasn’t a lot of… The good news is I think we went about creating the show, just go have fun. That’s the idea of the show. So there’s not a lot of us producing behind the stage, “You have to do this, don’t forget this.” There wasn’t a lot of stress behind it. So I think that people got there and were welcomed and loved and brought onto the table with like, “Hey, man, go do your thing. Have fun. All we care about is that you have fun, and if you have fun, the audience will have fun.”
Then it was important to us, I do think it was… We hired Brian Baldinger, who’s our casting director, who’s an incredible asset and was a gift. We wanted every table to be diverse. We wanted to be the most comprehensive look at what this community is, which is racially, sexually, gender-wise, every single difference that we can represent on that table, we were embracing. So that was important to us. We wanted to make sure every table was not…
We’re very clear that we’re five middle-aged white guys who put together a company, and we are constantly aware of that, that we need to make sure that we are lifting women, lifting people of color, lifting gender diversity, and neurodivergent people, and so that was important to us. It was important to us to make sure that tables were bountiful and represented the community.
I appreciate that. That’s one of my favorite parts of the show. This episode truly just made me go, “I want to play a game with Matthew Lillard as the DM.” That was what you accomplished with this episode for me.
Matthew Lillard: That’s good. Well, I don’t do it very often. I think I’ve played once on camera, a Halloween episode like six years ago, four years ago or something like that. Three years. I don’t know. COVID makes it all go sideways. But yeah, I love DMing. I just don’t do it very often.
Well, thank you so much.
Matthew Lillard: In public. I do DM all the time, but not in public.
Ah, gotcha. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I love Faster, Purple Worm! and these interviews are so much fun.
Matthew Lillard: Thank you, Caitlin. We appreciate you doing them. We love the feedback and you are our talk back with Andy after the Bravo shows, and you are our Andy Cohen.
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
