What Critical Role Can Teach Us about Making a Movement: 1000 Seconds with Liam O'Brien?

What happens when you bring a group of nerdy friends together to play Dungeon & Dragons who also coincidentally are all seasoned voice actors? You have an incredibly fun birthday party... and also in the case of Liam O'Brien and the crew that became Critical Role you get a global phenomenon that's launched a whole new kind of entertainment.  🌎

In this episode of 1000 Seconds, Forrest Alton sits down with Liam O'Brien, LA-actor, writer, director, and co-founder/primary cast member of Critical Role to unpack his journey from theater kid to one of the most influential voices in voice acting and actual play, a genre of entertainment where actors play a table-top role playing game (like D&D) for live audiences. 

Liam shares how staying true to oneself can fuel a movement, and ultimately what matters most is how impactful, meaningful storytelling can leave the world a better place.  

🎙 Learn more about Liam:

•  Official site: https://critrole.com
•  Watch The Legend of Vox Machina & The Mighty Nein on Amazon Prime 

Thank you for tuning in! Please subscribe to keep updated on Season Two of 1000 Seconds! 

⏱ Learn more about Forrest's work at https://www.1000feathers.com/.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

What's most important, and I'll just speak for myself, is is it resonating with people? Did it have a meaningful impact? In one of our stories that we told a character, his mantra was to leave the world better than the way you found it. And we have latched onto that and tried to do that as best we can.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

This is going to be a really, really fun conversation, and frankly, it is a long overdue conversation. On some level, it's fair to say that today's episode has been nearly 50 years in the making. That is quite literally how long I've been following the career trajectory of my guest today, Liam O'Brien. Liam, even though our professional paths don't cross very often, you know, I hope you know, I am one of your biggest fans, and I have been for a long, long time. I have no idea how I got you to stop long enough to fit this podcast episode into your calendar, but I am so glad I did, and I am so glad you are here. Welcome to 1000 Seconds.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Oh, thank you for having me. I think we've been mutual fans for a very, very long time. I'm curious how nerdy is your audience for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

That's a that's a really good question. Um, just in case, I think I'm gonna do some bio stuff here, right? Just in case folks don't recognize your name, I will say our audience may not recognize the name Liam O'Brien, but I assure you that people across the world, quite literally now in the right circles, do know Liam as an accomplished actor, writer, director, and producer in the world of animation and games. Liam has built a solid reputation as a reliable go-to guy in the world of games and animation, and is literally at the top of the field. Liam, let me go back just a second. You grew up in New Jersey, went to Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, began your career in theater before moving on to voice acting. That was 25 or so years ago. You're in Los Angeles now. I'm in Memphis. Like I said, our professional paths don't cross very often. Our personal paths don't cross as much as I would like them to. What you have accomplished in this voice acting universe, I'm gonna just cherry pick some names that I recognize here, right? So in animated series, you have been part of the Transformers, Avengers Assemble, Wolverine and X-Men, G.I. Joe on the video game side, titles like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Resident Evil, all sorts of anime features and shorts. I'm really probably shortchanging this list here because I'm not as familiar with some of the other titles that might be more recognizable or or even well known, sort of in your circle. But how do we do there? Like in in terms of background?

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Anything big I missed, especially for for anyone out there who has no idea who I am. I'm a professional nerd. I uh went to school decades ago to be a theater actor, still love the theater. I, at a certain point, when I was like a young uh theater student decided I had to put away all the nerdy things that I was in love with. And then I got to work learning how to act and traveling around off-Broadway, regional theaters, and somewhere along the line, I kind of doubled back and realized, as we all do, as we get older and you become uh comfortable with who you are, that I didn't need to put away all of my nerdy predilections. And it kind of became the center of my universe. So theater segued into lots of uh first voiceover work, then writing for those projects and directing for those projects. And I have been plunking around in those sort of uh nerdier universes for uh decades at this point. And now for the last 10 years, I have had the uh pride and honor and love of co-helming a company called Critical Role, which was a company started by a group of nerdy ass voice actors, we like to call ourselves, and we started playing tabletop role-playing games in front of a camera, even though it seemed improbable. And somehow that little pebble uh rolled downhill and became uh a snowball into a boulder of snow. What started out, you know, when I was 15 with action figures and comic books, yeah. And video games is sort of the land over which uh my friends and I happily purvey.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

I will say, you know, in that whole sort of career journey, the the first time I remember sort of hearing you on the the big stage. I'm I'm putting this in air quotes, right? Walking through my living room at one point and the commercial on the TV and being like, holy shit, is that Liam? I think was the the wonderful pistachio commercials. How long ago? That was a while ago, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

That was a while ago. It felt like the biggest thing that was ever gonna happen to me. Um that was probably 20 years ago at this point. For a few years, I was the voice for wonderful pistachios.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

That's sort of my first real memory, right? And I I suppose we should come clean here as well. Liam, I ask every one of my guests on this podcast, do you remember how we first met? Interesting question for you here. Uh, do you have an answer?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Well, memory is foggy. Uh, the further back you go, and our first meeting is about as far back as it gets. We took uh baths together as little tiny toddlers. And I remember uh crawling around in sand uh on the side of the St. Lawrence River, both of us having heads uh full of uh super blonde, super curly hair and running around in your backfield. Uh, we are in fact cousins.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Surprise. We are in fact cousins. I'm just so proud of you, man. I can't even put it into words. I'm so glad to be sitting here chatting with you. Liam and I are cousins, so we've known each other as as long as possible. Perhaps the most notable thing that's going to come of us being cousins and recording a podcast, this is my second season recording. This is episode five, season two. Just last week, my mother admitted to me she has not listened to a single episode. In the context of me mentioning that you and I were recording, and she was like, Oh my goodness, I can't wait. And I said, Well, have you seen other episodes? And she accidentally admitted the answer is no. So, if nothing else, thanks for getting mom to tune in.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Sure. Well, she probably is just considering it a family affair at this point. Um I, my mother and father, your aunt and uncle, who have both passed on, um, both very supportive, very proud of everything I did, but also everything I did was very confusing to them. So relatable, very, very relatable.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

I was thinking about this question how did we first meet? And I, again, short of like really young, really little kid memories, like I do hold on to a handful of these memories of us shoveling snow for neighbors outside your home and in New Jersey growing up. And we'd end up with 10, 15, 20 in our pocket. And occasionally we'd get to go to the mall, and we would certainly be walking into different stores of the mall, and it wasn't didn't really even sink then necessarily that was the beginning of all of this for you.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Yeah, I mean, if I'm in my voiceover booth right now. This is my home office, which is in a converted garage. And normally I do interviews like this out there, um, but there's a little bit of noise in the neighborhood, so this can seal us in. But out here are vestiges of everything that got me down this rabbit hole. You know, there's copies of The Hobbit, and there's even like He-Man and Transformer figures in a corner, and all of the things that pulled me into you know adventure stories and fantasy stories. I was playing with them in your house in, I don't know if it should be disclosed. We'll just say somewhere in America.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Let's talk about Critical Role just for a second. Here's what I say about Critical Role massively popular hit show, media brand. The shows you are doing see upwards of one million viewers per episode. If you put all of those episodes together, you're approaching 300 million total views on your social and subscription channels. I always pinpoint this. I know it was a sort of crucible moment. In 2019, you and the rest of the co-founders of Critical Rule launched a Kickstarter to raise seed funding for an animated show. You would hope to raise $750,000 and you raised 11 point something something million dollars. I mean, I'm just saying this to like demonstrate the massive popularity of what's happening here.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

I think for people who are not uh as versed in nerdy spaces, the uh a context will help us think of like a garage band. I think our trajectory has been a little bit like being a garage band. Um, so again, I and and my friends who now uh helm this ship, we've all been actors, directors, writers to varying degrees for varying amounts of time. And we just started playing uh Dungeons and Dragons at home for fun. It started as a LAR. Um, it was supposed to be one game only, and a couple days later we just all started communicating and saying that was the most fun we'd had in a million years. Do you guys want to keep doing it? And we did, and we we just played like, I don't know, every six or seven weeks. For anyone who doesn't know what DD is, who hasn't watched Stranger Things, it's you you get some dice, you you use your imagination. There's like a set of rules. It's sort of like uh improv meets uh Math Rocks game. And so you're imagining your own story that you're at the heart of, and sometimes you roll dice, and the dice will tell you yay or or boo. Uh you either succeed or you fail, and that that series of checks and balances over a few hours can tell a really, really fun story. And um, we it was just our own little thing we did for fun at home, and then somebody along the way, a woman named Felicia Day, who was starting a very, very popular uh YouTube channel at the time, Geek and Sundry, was talking to Ashley in our group, and they were talking about it, and she said, Would you be interested in doing some version of this at Geek and Sundry? And we thought that'll never work. Nobody will watch that. But we just took the story and the game that we've been playing at home for a few years and literally just continued it in front of a camera, and it started out real small. I think I believed it would last a few months. Maybe I just you know, other people uh had done a little of this at that point. There were some other actual play is the term for what we do, an actual play because you're playing a game, but they were more like for a single event, maybe on a stage tied to a Comic-Con somewhere. And I think this was one of the first instances of someone making a prolonged effort at it, and the people doing it were people whose career was based on sounding like elves and robots and and anything you can think of. So I think right out of the gate, it sort of sounded like a living radio play, and um it just picked up speed pretty quick. And part of the challenge over these last 10 plus years at this point is we almost underestimated ourselves as time went on. Um, and that's not like a braggartly thing. It's a such a weird new area of entertainment that we're like, well, this can only do this well. We made a hundred simple t-shirts at one point, I think, and mentioned them on air, and they all sold out before uh we could uh finish announcing them because in the early days we were live. Now we do pre-tape. What's crazy about it is in a weird way, we're still kind of niche, but that's how the world has changed and how the internet has changed the world. Because if you have a niche idea and you can self-produce or or be a self-starter and get it out there, that niche has people connected to it all around the planet. So you can reach out to everyone within a niche and do pretty good for yourself. That's how it started. It led to, like you said, the Kickstarter, which has led to now two animated series on Amazon Prime. I spend a lot of my time reviewing comic books and novels that we have moved and expanded our story and our universe into. And we have high hopes for video games and as you said, live shows, and then and then a half a dozen other things bouncing around in my head.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

I want to talk about all of it or as much as we can. I hope that listeners will extend me a little grace here. Liam and I don't get together nearly enough. We could, this episode could go for hours. But we do have to start the clock. The name of the podcast is 1,000 seconds. We're gonna call all of this part of our introduction, but when we come back, 1,000 seconds, Liam O'Brien.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Set your timers because Forest's 1000 seconds with Liam O'Brien starts now.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Right before the break, you you were telling us about Critical Role, the journey, what it has become, what it is. Am I right to say this entire thing? And and by the way, this thing, you don't have to brag about this thing because plenty of other people do. Rolling Stone magazine calls you all at Critical Roll the quote, standard bearers of a whole new genre of entertainment. And this whole thing, if I'm not mistaken, started with a gathering of friends at a birthday party, and and maybe even your birthday party?

SPEAKER_02 14:00

It was a it was a gift for me. I had been working with uh Matthew Mercer, who is has been the game runner for our games uh all these years. And we met on a on a Resident Evil game. I was directing him, and this was when this was years before Critical Role. My kids were both we little tots, and Matt just started talking about tabletop stuff in between takes on that. He started to say, we should play some time, we should play some time. And and I in the back of my head was like, Oh, that sounds great. I'll never do that. I got two little kids, I got two little kids, I got a big pile of work. I don't, I don't know when I would fit it in. Right. And then it was a few years later, uh, Sam Regal, a longtime friend, he and I had our own podcast called All Work No Play about two busy dads in the industry we're in, who never had time to like be friends and do fun things. And we would uh challenge ourselves to do something silly, fun, strange, and then we would talk about it. Right out of the gate, uh the second episode, maybe Matt was still good on his offer, and he gifted me uh his time as a friend to run a game. And again, uh I mentioned it earlier. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. I th I thought it was gonna be a one-time thing. We all did, and we just were all snake bit and fell in love with putting our phones away and and improvising with each other and and surprising each other with a story.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

It doesn't matter how many times I hear you say it, however, many times I read it somewhere. I mean, this is this is wild, right? I mean, you have to like pinch yourself almost daily, like, what the hell is happening here? Talk about taking an idea to scale from that moment you just described, not knowing if I had time to do this thing with friends. Fast forward now 10, 11 years. I'm reading about you in Forbes magazine and Rolling Stone magazine, and you're selling out arenas around the world, you've got a 2026 tour, really starts any day here, right? And you're gonna be in Berlin and London and Scotland. And in your own words, you and the other co-founders and cast members are creating an entire universe together, right? So, I mean, for the people listening here, like on one hand, we're talking about playing a table game together with friends. On the other hand, we're really talking about taking an idea and turning it into a movement. How did this happen? On one hand, there's some luck and maybe it just happened. On the other hand, I know it took an incredible amount of work.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Well, yeah, luck is the residue of hard work. I think, boy, I don't even know what how to answer which part of your question first, but like one one good thing about our group is that we're all got our heads screwed on pretty straight and work hard. And I think we were already hard workers. And all these years later, as it's grown and we now have like a company and we have staff and we have uh multiple projects going on, there's also like added, like there's responsibility to it, and we know how rarefied the air is we're breathing. So I we're constantly trying to be worthy of the good fortune and responsible to keep all the incredible artists and writers and and and our company members. But as far as how it happened, boy, that is a great question. I look back at so many things that if she hadn't met him, if he hadn't been there, yeah, if if I personally had chosen a different college, like so many things would not have plinkoed down to this point for it to happen. But I will say, again, with the changing landscape of the world and and how the internet has sort of democratized so many industries, like if you have an idea that you feel passionate about, you really can push that boulder up a hill and make it go s go somewhere, which maybe wasn't the case 30 years ago, 40 years ago, or it certainly was harder to do that. You know, I think a lot of people, the this hobby was not quite as big as it is now, and the internet helped broadcast that to a larger group, and people could watch us doing this thing that definitely existed, it was it was popular, but way more people were able to see it in action and go, oh, that's what that weird thing is that I've heard about or never heard about. And so we were able to take this again, niche, nerdy passion. It was something that was important to us, and because it was important to us, we weren't trying to like fill quotas or do focus, focus groups or anything. It was just what we loved, and something that we've tried to hold on to all these years is is it entertaining to us? Is it gripping or interesting or challenging or fun to us? And hopefully, if it is, then other people who are in our niche, our global niche, will will come along with us. And so far that has been borne out to be the truth.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

It's really interesting and important, I think, to to hear you say that. Again, I'm I'm reading here, so I don't get this wrong, but depending on when you pull these numbers, they could be outdated. But the company, Critical Role, has created more than 2,500 hours of original content, more than 30 original shows, published nearly 70 books, comics, and novels. You are in season three of the Amazon show, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 19:06

We've released three seasons of The Legend of Vox Machina, which was the first story that took over a hundred episodes or games uh to tell around a table that we've adapted. We've got more to go. And then just this uh in the last handful of months, we released the first season of our second show, The Mighty Nine, which is a whole totally different vibe, um, different format, but they are cousins living on Amazon Prime right now.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Just makes me pause. And again, the sort of critical role genre aside, I think this is the part to me that's relevant to anyone listening. You are quite literally, and and your your co-founders are are running a company, are producing content, massive amounts of content, and having to continually sort of look six, nine, twelve months down the road at what the next thing is, what the new thing is. I'm certainly not going to ask you to break any news on this podcast, but think about sort of those three things collectively running the company, creating current content, thinking about the future. How do we do all three of those things at the same time?

SPEAKER_02 20:09

You have my brain racing to my uh schedule after this, and also have me wanting to take wanting me to take a nap. Yeah, it's a lot of juggling, but I mean, we love it. That helps a lot. It's sure, sure it does. If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. Not entirely true. There are definitely days we're like, ooh, there's so much. Right. But think about what I wanted to do as a kid. I wanted to be on stage. I had dreams of what I want to do when I grew up, and somehow, magically, and I still have a tremendous love for theater, but I found something that was even better than the dream I had. And and we get to world build. So we're continually fleshing out people and and heroes and villains and conflict. It just started to feel it felt real before we even became a company. So interesting. The idea that we could we that I spend my days now going to a corner of our our world of Xandria that hasn't been explored fully yet, and go like, oh, actually, we can color in this part of it, and the people over here are like this, and there's this political upheaval or uh heartbreak or something happening over here. I got into my line of work because I'm in love with stories. I love stories. Sure. Storytelling and being a storyteller, and that's in all I do, even if it changes the manner of it, changes day to day and week to week and month to month, but it all serves telling both individual stories and this larger collective story of a world. It's our our MCU, our sort of unified Disney verse, but it's one that came out of our hearts and heads. And again, not focused tested, just what tickled us.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

As you were just talking, it it also makes me think, and I I do know enough, at least from reading to prep for this podcast, that like part of the DD sort of mantras is just like experiment, do, but like it's okay to maybe fail and not get everything. I'm thinking about that in terms of your company and what you've built. Surely not every idea you all have had in growing this company has worked. We talk a lot on this podcast about creating room for failure. I suspect there have been some ideas that didn't work, and I just am curious how you all have have handled those along the way.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think we try to have the same sort of philosophy in our time uh storytelling, which is, you know, at our table, if you just talk about the game we play together, the improv uh improvised story, we take big swings and magical things happen. Sometimes really sometimes really stupid things happen because we're pulling it out of our butt but and following our noses. But um, we've learned to take big swings following inspiration. And and I think anyone who is uh an artist or an entrepreneur who is trying to you know strive forward into the world with their idea, if you don't take those big swings and and push, there won't be any progress forward. So we've of course had projects that haven't done as well as others, or I've had we've had ideas that like were brewing and then we had to like pivot from them for different reasons, but it's it's just part of the process and and and and I love doing all of these things, even if every single one of them doesn't become like this bright diamond, you know, world to see. If if my goal were just ultimate success and like wealth and reward, I would have been a hedge fund manager. But I I got I I got into storytelling because I love the process of cracking open story and character.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

And my sense is just from this conversation, but also from knowing you, there's also your definition of did this idea work or did this particular thing succeed really has a little bit more intrinsic parts of the definition than like how many clicks did it get, how many people paid for it, how many people showed up. I mean, how how how are you all able to sort of sit back and say this idea worked or this idea didn't?

SPEAKER_02 23:57

What's most important, and I'll just speak for myself, is is it resonating with people? Did it have a meaningful impact in one of our stories that we told a character, his mantra was to leave the world better than the way you found it. We have latched onto that and try to do that as best we can. I think that we tell stories that matter, even if there are dragons in them, and sometimes there's, you know, elves and robots. There's always elves and robots. Um, but we're trying to model the world we wish we lived in. Part of that is, whoa, I wish that I could ride a dragon, but more often than not, it's I wish that people had the conviction to do what was right in a very hard world. And I think we try to model empathy and kindness and understanding. And of course, our stories are full of people who are the exact opposite of that, but they serve a purpose. One of the best things about Critical Role is the unparalleled community that we've created around the show and the stories that we tell. You know, we go around the world, we go to conventions, and it's not just about like everyone's come to see us on stage that it's obviously a blast to perform on stage in front of a live audience, but I also love going and seeing thousands of people who are friends because they were inspired by our group of friends who clearly like respect and love and cherish each other and challenge each other and play this dorky, well, multiple dorky games to sort of serve that. You know, I did this as a kid, I did this when I was 12 or 13, and and not that many people compared to now did it. And I just thought it was like, oh, this is a secret thing, and there's only three people in town I who know about. Right, right. Sure. Yeah. Now I get to see thousands of tables or new friend groups uh who exist. They have glommed onto the same things like leave the world better than you found it. One of my characters at one point, something I pulled out of my butt on stage in front of thousands of people, was talk to a person who was in extreme crisis and doubt and who could not see any good in themselves. And I just winged, saying to them, You were not born with venom in your veins, you learned it. And I see people with that tattooed on them now. So, like, we love telling stories, and I love telling stories that matter, and I think our stories matter.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

That is so powerful and really resonates, right? For me, that's a this sort of full circle moment again, as cousins of like, I know who you are, and I know the things that you stand for, and we're part of the same family and hold some of that same fabric. And so when I hear you describe the show in that way, it really means something. And and I know that you mean it. And I'm not sure that in all the things I've read and all the videos I've watched and trying to learn and keep up with you and and your successes, that I've I've heard you articulate sort of the importance of the show in that way. That that's just really cool. Sadly, we're we're running out of time. Maybe we're out of time. I'm gonna keep chatting anyway. I want to close with this. You talked a lot about impact before and meaning, and the messages and stories you're telling are resonating with people. You also have said, and again, the co-founders collectively have said, since the beginning, one of Critical Role's guiding principles has been to use our platform to create good. I know that comes through in the things you're producing. It also comes through your foundation, right? The ability to give back. I mean, just spotlight that for a second as we wrap up here. What does doing good and giving back look like for a critical role at at this point in the journey?

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Well, I think you'd understand because I know that making an impact is important to you in your work. And I've always admired, uh, admired you for it. We do want to leave the world better than we found it. It's not all just about yucks and stories of dragons and and undead mages. I feel like we've been given such a gift with the journey that we've been on that it is too selfish to just sit back and not do anything for the world that allowed it to happen. So we have CRF, the Critical Role Foundation. We raise money for a handful of cherished charities. I don't I don't know if to me, it just feels like a plus that I get to actually do some good in the world, you know, not just not just crank away in the Hollywood uh mill. Um, and we've we've traveled to India and we have helped students in Los Angeles and have contributed to cancer research, and we've there's always efforts for disaster relief. You know, I wish I could do more. You know, we all have our challenges and we all have our our blessings and gifts. And I think that this critical role journey has been such a unique one and such a rare one that it would be irresponsible of me and all of us not to try to give as much back as we can.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Well said, I love it. Listen, you you don't need much help from me in the promotion department, but just in case somebody wants to learn more about Critical Role, about you, about an upcoming tour, like website, social media, like what's the best place to go here to get started?

SPEAKER_02 29:04

You can start at critrol.com, which will lead you to everything else. You can check out our two animated series, The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nine on Amazon Prime. You can find us on Twitch, on YouTube, and our own platform known as Beacon.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Liam, I can't wait to see you this summer. Give you a big hug. There's lots to catch up on that we didn't have time to get into today. I can't thank you enough. I love you, man. And and mostly, mom, I I hope you enjoyed the episode.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Hi, Aunt Eula. I look forward to some fresh air this summer.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

We'll talk sooner.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Okay. Thanks for listening to 1000 Seconds, a podcast by 1000 Feathers. This series is produced by Renley Wilson with original music from Emily McNally and support from the entire One Thousand Feathers team. Learn more at one thousandfeathers.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook for future episodes.