We’re just over a week away from the debut of Dimension 20′s newest season: the high flying, two-fisted steampunk adventure of Cloudward Ho! In it, the Intrepid Heroes will travel to a fantastical world of machine wonders and perils known as Gath in search of the missing Professor Comfrey MacLeod. But before the crew can take off, we got a chance to chat with cast member Siobhan Thompson, whose character Vanellope Chapman represents a brand new challenge for the veteran comedienne.
Dan Arndt: I want to start by thinking about the the world that about how it takes place. As Brennan says at the top of the first episode: we’re doing steampunk. What’s your experience with steampunk?
Siobhan Thompson: I think steampunk is somewhat of an ephemeral genre. A lot of it is sort of just an aesthetic overlay, but the stuff that really gets me excited is the old sort of adventuring, rip roaring Princess Bride, Indiana Jones, adventures on the high seas, Around The World In 80 Days type stories, Miyazaki stories.
Dan: How did how did you get ready to part of a story in this world?
Siobhan: I always try when we’re doing something that’s a new genre to go and absorb some of the previous art that’s been made. I watched a bunch of movies and read some stuff and then Brennan wrote us a huge lore document that we all got to absorb before we went into character creation. And one of the things that I love about Dimension 20 is that world creation is sort of a two way process. Often, Brennan will come in and say, this is the world, but then based on what our characters are, then the world is built out around that. My character comes from an old family of pirates and that built out part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily have been built out if that hadn’t been my pitch.
Dan: Van was the big thing that really stuck out to me since has a really cool introduction. Where did she come from as a character for you?
Siobhan: I think this season I really wanted to play a highly competent grownup. Someone who’s just excellent at their job without it being showy. I think that a lot of adventure stories are about sort of rapier-waving, very dramatic people. And it was fun to create a character within that genre that was actually just like, no, I’m just really good at my job. And then especially based on how the other members of the crew had reacted to their own retirements, it was sort of fun to have a character where at least on the surface, she says “No, you know, I’ve done my work and now I retire and I’m quite happy retired and I love my husband and we’ve built a beautiful life for ourselves. And thank you.” Like adventuring, I’m done, but thank you.
Dan: Fulfillment for a tabletop character is such a rarity, isn’t it?
Yeah, exactly. I retired, thank you so much for your time.
Dan: How do you play a character who is so competent and so with it and skilled and still be surprised and still play that part in the story.
Siobhan: Competent people can still be surprised, you know, they don’t, even though they might have more of an inkling than other people know what’s going to happen next. It’s more about how you react and it’s fun to play somebody who is a leader in that way. Somebody who’s used to having their commands obeyed, not because they are powerful, but because they’re right. It’s very fun to play a somewhat unflappable character in a world that gets as zany as this one does.
Dan: I think there’s something underrated about being able to play the straight man.
Siobhan: I really enjoy playing the straight man, especially in this group. It’s not a role I always play, in comedy or in life, but I find all of the people that we play with to be very fun to straight man and still get a lot of jokes. Van running a very sort of Gen X-coded gastropub and all of the silliness that comes around that — 800 different shades of millennial gray, aioli flights — you can straight man and still be funny. And I think that that is always a fun balance to me.
Dan: Is there any character you really enjoyed playing off of from the cast?
Oh God, I mean, everybody is so good and so funny this season. Lou’s character, Montgomery LaMontgommery. It’s just so fun to play somebody that you have that much trust with and be able to have a level of shorthand talking to, is very delightful to me. But everybody killed it. I don’t know. I’m just always very impressed with my friends.
Dimension 20: Cloudward Ho! debuts June 4th on Dropout. Dimension 20: Cloudward Ho!’s cast is led by Game Master Brennan Lee Mulligan, and additionally stars Emily Axford, Ally Beardsley, Brian Murphy, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson and Lou Wilson.
And if you can’t wait that long, the Dimension 20 crew will play a live show this Sunday, June 1, LIVE from the famous Hollywood Bowl. Dimension 20: Battle of the Bowl will see “The Bad Kids” back at it again as the Aguefort Adventuring Academy comes under attack from its greatest enemy, and the fate of Spyre hangs in the balance! Fans can still pickup tickets here.
Images via Dimension 20
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