Anjali Bhimani-from Uber to D&D star ~ Ms Marvel, GenCon, Fake or Real Games (A·B·C·D) Podcast Ep 26

Gather around everyone, as we welcome the delightful Anjali Bhimani to our beloved podcast! Anjali, a master performer, shares with us her inspiring journey from a passionate child performer to a successful professional artist. We also delve into the fascinating intricacies of character-building—an essential lesson for storytellers and TTRPG enthusiasts. Prepare to be captivated!

This episode is not all serious chatter, though. We're stepping into the exciting realm of board games, challenging ourselves and our listeners to guess if certain game pitches are real or just figments of our creative minds. From 'Business Monkeys' to 'Wow, the Pillow Fight Game'—we guarantee a hearty laugh and a test to your game knowledge. So, think you have what it takes to ace our little game?

But there's more! We wrap up our episode with a heartening discussion on Anjali's hurdles and triumphs in her career. She generously shares her wisdom on the importance of taking a break when needed and leveraging the abundance of others towards personal success. It's a combination of humor, wisdom, and inspiring anecdotes—leaving you with a delightful podcast experience you wouldn't want to miss! Come, join us!

Transcript

Podcast Introduction With Anjali Bhimani

Speaker 1 0:08

You should , you should , you did you did though . You did , anyway , you did .

Speaker 2 0:16

Hey everybody , welcome to ABCD . I'm your , I'm your host , but I'm going to introduce my , my lovely co-host . He you've seen him in dimension 20 , but only because dimensions one through 19 wouldn't have anything to do with him . Fools , fools , a lot of them . That's Omar Najam .

Speaker 1 0:35

Oh , thank you , thank you , thank you , oh , thank you , thank you . Thank you , folks , I would like to introduce your host for this week . He has a monopoly on saying sorry . It's Sandeep Parikh .

Speaker 2 0:48

Nice , I own all the sorry's , I own all the apologies . You get none . By the way , I'm not just hosting , I'm Prime Minister , as if you don't .

Speaker 3 0:58

Oh , that's OK .

Speaker 1 1:00

The Prime .

Speaker 2 1:00

Minister of the show .

Speaker 1 1:04

I don't know if I believed in the electoral process that you ?

Speaker 2 1:08

are you calling the election fraudulent Is ?

Speaker 1 1:11

that what's happening . I am 100% calling the election fraudulent . If it wasn't fraudulent , I would have won .

Speaker 2 1:15

You're going to destroy our democracy . You're going to destroy it .

Speaker 1 1:19

It's been built on lies and I was hoping to capitalize on those lies and they came back and put me in the ass .

Speaker 2 1:26

Well , listen if you don't know what the heck we're talking about . We're talking about our last week's show , but this week's show is all that matters . Ok , and it's called ABCD . It's American born Chattie Desi's . It's a podcast , but we're actually in a live stream and that's inside of our lives as two American born Desi's . It's a pod duck in . Ladies and gentlemen , this is for anyone out there who , like us , me and Omar , are navigating our cultural identities and just kind of want to chat it out .

Speaker 1 1:49

Yes , yes , yes , yes . We are so excited because today we are going to be discussing board games a little bit , but , more importantly , we're joined by our very , very good friend , anjali Bhimani yes , who is ? We're essentially going to do a really fun announcement about Gen Con . I don't want to ruin it .

Speaker 2 2:09

That's going to come later in the podcast and about Desi Quest is a fun announcement about that I don't want to ruin it .

Speaker 1 2:13

I don't want to ruin it , but we get to sit down and chat with our friend and a spiritual guide .

Speaker 2 2:20

I mean right , I mean I think she's my guru now . I mean so we're listen , we're a little insider based bubble . We recorded , recording this after we did the interview . Ok , and I just want to I'm going to prime the pump here , because that interview was awesome . She , I feel like I just got dropped like I don't know , like a tome of wisdom , like , yes , you know , I feel like I was like , did I just read a Veda ? Like what happened ?

Speaker 1 2:43

here I feel enlightened . I feel stronger , better , smarter . Definitely , and then after that we play a little game with Anjali , which is . There's a couple of board games that are weird .

Speaker 3 3:00

And just a couple , just a couple .

Speaker 1 3:02

And they have to guess . Are these real board games ? Are they games that Delvin and I came up with ?

Speaker 2 3:08

I'm going to say this already easily one of the best games we've ever played . So you're in for a real treat for this episode of ABCD . Why don't we jump right in to

Interview With Anjali Bhimani and Stories

Speaker 2 3:17

?

Speaker 3 3:17

our interview with Anjali Bhimani oh yeah , oh my gosh , I told you . I told you , this is a big deal , my god . So much for me .

Speaker 2 3:32

We sold out our auditorium because of you .

Speaker 3 3:36

Yes , I just like to thank my mom and I'd like to thank I don't know , I'm stopping that joke , it's not funny , I just aborted it completely . I was like no , I give up on that one what's the opposite of yes and no ? But Because anything else that . I was going to say was going to offend me . So I was like I don't want to say any of these things on this podcast right now . So we are off to a stunning start .

Speaker 2 4:04

We're off to the races . We're doing it . This is amazing .

Speaker 1 4:08

Should we you want to talk about it some ? More I want to get it to it . Can we actually do a director's commentary ? Yes , please .

Speaker 2 4:17

Just say it back and do a director's commentary . Yeah , anjali , I got to be honest . It's better than maybe all of our opening jokes that we've done for the 23 episodes of ABCD . We're doing great .

Speaker 3 4:29

I should not have given up on myself .

Speaker 2 4:31

No , no yeah . That's number one to everybody .

Speaker 3 4:33

Do not discount yourself for the rest of the world . There are plenty of people who will say you suck . You don't have to say it to yourself .

Speaker 2 4:40

A little bit of wisdom , I can just cut the last question , which is what advice would you give to people ? Because there it is , don't cut yourself . That's just one piece . But the director called cut .

Speaker 1 4:49

You don't have to cut on yourself . We're in the pre-pod , so maybe bring it up again and then you know .

Speaker 3 4:53

Are we in the pre-pod , though ? What is it ?

Speaker 2 4:57

We're going to go very fast . It's just to say hi to our chat .

Speaker 3 5:01

Oh hi , chatty . Honestly , I think we're Where's chat , did I follow ?

Speaker 2 5:06

them . I think we're just going to call this the pod .

Speaker 1 5:08

This is just the pod now .

Speaker 2 5:09

This is just it . Should we just pop right in ? We got underly for till 830 . Okay , and so we're just going . We're gonna do this .

Speaker 1 5:27

That's right Only .

Speaker 2 5:41

Since you're playing auntie right now . This is just reminding me of like when I have to do tech with my parents , you know . Yeah and go like okay , mom , all right , here's the okay . Okay , so the mouse cursor .

Speaker 3 5:53

Is the pointy , the thing that's pointing around and I tell you , though , my mom In has insisted for decades that she is bad at . Technology has become such a wits Hanging on with you . Don't sound like me . I'm the one who was messing with my hair the whole time . That's not your job .

Speaker 2 6:10

I look like I had a come over .

Speaker 3 6:11

I look at my parents , but here's the thing like she , my mom for so many years would say things like oh you know , I don't know anything about that , or I don't know how to talk about that , or I don't . You know , my mother is like one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life . She is about to turn 84 in like a week and a half , and she is learning her fifth language .

Speaker 3 6:32

Yeah and like she is this . So anytime she would say like oh well , I'm too dumb to know that , or I , you know , your mom is so stupid . She'd say things like that . I'm like , uh-uh , doesn't work anymore .

Speaker 2 6:42

No try to smart .

Speaker 3 6:44

You know , we know , we know mom your secrets out .

Speaker 2 6:46

Yeah , she's like , you know she's , she's already like invested in crypto and actually money on it .

Speaker 3 6:52

She's like personally not invested in crypto , and that's why she's smart .

Speaker 1 6:57

She does have her own point .

Speaker 3 7:00

I'm gonna be messing with my hair this entire time because this is the first time I have ever , I always see you guys .

Speaker 2 7:06

Well , thank you , I , I , I am gonna accept your you go ahead and you go ahead and mess with your hair as much as you need . They're the worst .

Speaker 3 7:16

Headphones like why ? Why do they have to be this ? I'm gonna be a contrarian on this .

Speaker 2 7:20

I kind of a little bit love headphones because for me , I have poofy , dumb hair right now , but the headphones like you , kind of masks .

Speaker 3 7:31

So see what they do for the female hair , for a lot of female hair . Do , they do is that they , they mash you down so you look like you're wearing like a seventh grade headband .

Speaker 1 7:41

Yeah , yeah , you know what I mean .

Speaker 3 7:43

Like I feel like I'm having a little bit of PTSD , right now . I think it's like it's just not working . And then I tried , or tried before the pre-pod , or before the pod , or before the whatever we're calling this way , what are put ? It begins all that these days .

Speaker 2 7:55

It's the pot .

Speaker 3 7:55

We're in the pod try putting it up on a ponytail . I don't know you're on a podcast . If you're listening to the podcast , you can't see it .

Speaker 1 8:02

So I don't know why I'm talking about it . No , describe it in detail .

Speaker 3 8:05

Good exclamation point you got a compliment and chat All right . Thank you guys . You're very sweet yeah . I appreciate we appreciate your ability to To like me , to help my ego . I appreciate that .

Speaker 1 8:19

No kidding .

Speaker 3 8:19

I accept your compliments and I appreciate them . Thank you .

Speaker 2 8:22

I'm Julie . You are a freight train of awesome and I'm gonna jump into an actual introduction for those out . I mean , I know we filled this auditorium and everything , but there are probably some people that don't know you , foolish as they are in the dark , you know , wandering around the universe , going like you know , just like missing something , not knowing that they're missing something , but feeling in their heart like they're missing something . And so let's introduce you . I'm usually be mommy . Can be seen as the vibrant , the lumen auntie love that word play Auntie Ruby in Miss Marvel on Disney Plus . Hello , no big deal . And is known in the video game world as the voice of rampart . So maybe that maybe a voice sounded familiar . Like who is that ? That's rampart in apex legends .

Speaker 3 9:05

Especially if I start talking like this and start being a jerk .

Speaker 2 9:07

There you go .

Speaker 3 9:08

Then you know like , yeah , because that's pretty much her , her issues , just me with an accent , with me .

Speaker 1 9:16

Just with no filter . I feel like I'm closer to , I feel like I'm a lot closer .

Speaker 3 9:19

I want to be closer to Symmetra like elegant and smart and , but I actually probably lean closer to rampart which is like don't you know , don't have no filter . I'm gonna say things .

Speaker 2 9:29

So that's , that's punk a jaunty . I got it Okay . Or Symmetra and overwatch right Live . Play Darling , dare I say extraordinary extraordinary is another good word , and candela obscura .

Speaker 1 9:48

I hope I said that right goodness Xandria , oh my goodness .

Speaker 2 9:55

And then goodness , you guys , uh-huh , we're not just the presence of this actor , performer , voice actor person , but also an author like I . To me , that is a big deal . Like I am , I feel like that is a huge , monumental achievement to be an author of a best-selling book on the left nonetheless , which is , I am fun-sized and so are you , so you , everybody , should just go ahead and just wait , go ahead and buy that right now .

Speaker 3 10:19

Wait we'll just wait time . You guys are slaying me right now I have to show you , for those , for those of you who can see what's going on right here . I want to show you what's happening , yeah you work in this room . Oh , let's he went away , he fled .

Speaker 2 10:34

Oh , let's let's crib this thing . Let's go to a house tour .

Speaker 3 10:42

Charlie , my dog . Charlie , the best dog in the world Legitimately just stood at the door and looked at me like why , why aren't you coming down to dinner ? What's wrong ?

Speaker 2 10:50

Wow , giving you it's 8 30 . We got Charlie . We have her till 8 30 . Please .

Speaker 3 10:54

Yeah , sorry , I'm gonna do my dinner time , so I'm gonna .

Speaker 2 11:00

I'm gonna add something else to that list of amazing credits , which is Star of they sequest .

Speaker 1 11:08

Yes , heard of it , yes .

Speaker 2 11:11

Our podcast listeners will know it , as our one of our sponsors of our show is . They sequest it , sponsors this show . It's the tiki RPG that is coming out in . We can't say when , but it's coming out this year . It's coming out soon . We're excited about it . We're in post . It's happening . You know we just released the trailer , so go to this request comment . Check that out , but not just the star . I have one more thing to add , and we are announcing for the first time ever , by the way .

Speaker 1 11:38

Go , let's go , let's go that .

Speaker 2 11:40

Anjali Bhimani is gonna be executive producing the show alongside so excited so excited .

Speaker 3 11:48

I cannot tell you guys how excited I am to be a part of that team . You guys , I mean , it's just I'm , I'm just gonna keep saying I'm so excited , like I can't wait for the world to see the world that Jasmine has created and we've set up , and what the Kickstarter supporters have have helped us to create . It's just , it's an embarrassment of riches . I'm so excited , I'm so excited , I'm so excited . Friendly saved by the . Bell lovers out there yeah we are excited to you , I mean already like proven you're .

Speaker 2 12:20

You know you're worth your weight in gold For for the show way that much .

Speaker 3 12:29

Like I said , I am fun size .

Speaker 2 12:30

It's a tiny human , that's true but it's Nickers bar full of gold , that it was just a gold that would be a snickers bar would be such a tease I can't buy a city with that . So you know , it doesn't take much to be .

Speaker 3 12:46

That's what I'm thinking . I'm like I wanted my Milky Way and now I got , and I specifically changed it to Milky Way because I don't like but listen , all , all , all that awesome .

Speaker 2 12:54

This is the best interview ever . It's just just talking you up and talking about food . Now I'm just hungry . We got . We got people in chat very excited . They're just yelling things out like yo . And so .

Speaker 3 13:10

I'm trying so hard , aunties trying so hard , to juggle here and I'm not doing a good job .

Speaker 2 13:14

So your mouse cursor is the .

Speaker 3 13:19

Is this , is this where I go , I go to . I go to f and funny dot chat .

Speaker 1 13:23

That looks like the cover for Lincoln Park's hybrid theory when you held it up .

Speaker 3 13:27

Well , there's like , there's like an ad going on . What's out ?

Speaker 2 13:31

Yeah . Why am I ? You have to yeah , because you're not a subscriber , sorry , what .

Speaker 3 13:39

I typed f and funny . I typed f and funny , but Siri , freaking , changed it .

Speaker 2 13:47

Is racist against us , siri is .

Speaker 3 13:49

I don't know if series racist , but I do know she's trying to break up my marriage and I'm not appreciating it go on , well , okay , so how's that ? Well , she just like I don't know , like Wake up and we , like Siri , turn off the filter in the bedroom . Yes , okay , perfect , let me do everything for you .

Speaker 2 14:08

You know , you can change the voice . You can make it like . You can make it like a gruff British guy Like you're like oh .

Speaker 3 14:20

Yeah , no , it's not that she's that beats , just that . I don't like this . She listens to everything , oh .

Speaker 2 14:28

Well .

Speaker 3 14:28

I feel like there's no like safety and that I don't . She's not on on my If your husband just wants somebody who just does whatever , he'd bet you know whatever , Thank God he doesn't , because he married me and he knows he broke and he got it so like he just , he's fully aware that I will absolutely take a bullet for him , but , more importantly , I will live for him and that makes a whole .

Speaker 2 14:51

Huge . All right , I want to get listen out . We got a little time . I want to get into some . I want to get we're not just having you on here because we want to talk about this request . I mean , that's all well and good , but I think we want to get to know you a little bit even more , like kind of your origin story , so to speak .

Journey to Becoming a Performer

Speaker 2 15:09

Take us back , like what ? Because I think our listeners you know a lot of folks who are South Asian out there , who want to get into the arts , who are looking for , you know , some motivation to maybe confront their parents about how to do it that they can do it to that kind of thing .

Speaker 2 15:25

I'm wondering if you can kind of take us back to when you started out and you know , when did you know you wanted to be a performer ? And when do you know ? Do you know that you wanted that to be your career ?

Speaker 3 15:35

Yeah , so I feel like I kind of hit the lottery in terms of , like , the particular set of parents they have hit the lottery , guys .

Speaker 3 15:47

Particularly . I sorry I totally hit the lottery with my parents and the reason I don't mean hit the lottery , I mean I've hit the lottery with my life . Yes , but that's come from hard work and being in the right place and opportunity and all of the things you know . But so my parents , both surgeons , surprise , surprise and but they met acting in a play in medical school . What medical students have so much free time on their hands ?

Speaker 2 16:10

Yeah , I'm like what . Two of them go to med school for you .

Speaker 3 16:13

No , no , no . They were in Mumbai back when it was called Pompeii and my dad was the leading man in this like intercollegiate drama troupe and my mom was a student there and he was trying to you know they were they were trying to cast someone opposite him in the play and he kept vetoing everyone . That his best friend , who was also the the director of the troupe . He kept vetoing everyone . The guy frustrated . So my dad said , ok , the next girl that walks down those stairs , I'll ask her . And it was my mom .

Speaker 3 16:41

No , and yes way and he went . You didn't say no way , but I just added that he . So he went up to her and , like all big man on campus , tears like hi , I'm better than I'm in between this play and all that stuff . And then my mom said I don't know who you think you are , but maybe I'll do your play . Let me talk to my mom . And no one had really sassed my dad at that point in his life , so naturally he was smitten and he didn't want to see her either .

Speaker 3 17:08

You know he did not want to see you wanted in the law . So they did . They did the play and they became real , you know , dear friends , and of course three years , and then you know , the rest is history .

Speaker 3 17:20

So good In a sense I there was I'm not in the sense there was already an appreciation of acting in the family and I I sort of felt , I think I fell in love . You know , like all little kids do , or most little kids , a lot of little kids do is you know , I put on little shows in the living room and like I wrote a play and on the playground in first grade and performed it for the class and then we ended up doing a mine unit because of it . Like little things like that got me excited . But then it started to show my , my artsy , started to show when I would do like book reports and things . And also because , like , for example , I played D&D starting when I was eight and I decided to do a report on I decided to do a report on like medieval weaponry and I played out a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail .

Speaker 2 18:10

Like so you like play , acted your book reports . You're like yeah , I turn this into an old presentation . Exactly , Exactly .

Speaker 3 18:17

Like I turned things into a show .

Speaker 2 18:18

So there's a few pyrotechnics , mr Sponsored , we're going to do these outside , if that's OK .

Speaker 3 18:26

But then I think it was really in junior high when I really started to fall in love with it . And I remember seeing a production of Kismet at Cal State , fullerton , and the combination of loving the music and loving the musical and the just the spectacle of it , but also even though I don't really know what the ethnic background of the actual performers was the characters were Middle Eastern and at that point that was about the closest thing I had seen to someone who looked like me being on stage and I thought , oh my gosh , I could totally do . This is a thing I can do . I can do this thing I . This is awesome . And so I did all the school plays . And then I did community theater and I just kind of dove into it . But then somewhere in high school I figured out , oh wait , people like do this for a career .

Speaker 3 19:12

Like this is a real thing , I could do this for a living . And so when I made that decision and I told my parents , you know , first it was , yeah , sure , you want to be a firefighter when you were five , right . But then there was the second layer of why don't you get a degree in something else ? And then you can do this and you'll have a fallback and some sensible options , but then I was trying to fall back .

Speaker 3 19:34

If I have a fallback . I might fall back . I'm not really interested in that , and so then then , when they realized how serious I was about it , they were like awesome , treat it like you treat everything else Study as hard as you can , make sure you're really good at it , make sure you can make a living at it and make sure you love it .

Speaker 3 19:48

That's all we care about and that's essentially what I did . So there was no sense back then , and I talk about this a lot . When I'm talking to to quote unquote younger actors , I don't mean age , I just mean in terms of freshness in your career ?

Speaker 2 20:04

Yeah sure .

Speaker 3 20:07

I didn't . I treated it just like I would have treated any other career . I wasn't thinking about being famous . I wasn't thinking about making millions of dollars . I was thinking about making a living doing what I love , learning how to do it and being really good at it . Right , I remember there was a uncle who you know . I was talking to him about wanting to go into acting and he said oh , when are you going to do a movie with Tom Cruise ? Yeah , and I was like .

Speaker 3 20:31

Ok , first of all , don't make fun of me . Second , I'm probably not going to do a movie with Tom Cruise . I'm going to be doing movies and plays and projects with all of my friends because we're all going to come up together .

Speaker 2 20:42

Yeah , we're going to make really cool things . That's amazing that you had that foresight , and then I also said to him .

Speaker 3 20:46

Well , I also said to him because I was kind of a dick . I also said to him uncle you're a doctor , you're a doctor , right ? And he said yeah . And I said do you have to be famous to be a successful doctor ? Because I'm pretty sure you're not .

Speaker 2 20:57

Yeah , you're famous to be successful . And when are you going to be such in general ? Yeah , so you know like .

Speaker 3 21:04

so it was very much this , and I probably said it a little more respectfully than that , because my sass has built over time , but but just that sense of trying to you were touching his feet .

Speaker 2 21:14

I love , yeah , exactly Bowing down . You know I was back and away slowly .

Speaker 3 21:22

I was very defensive of don't ruin this thing for me .

Speaker 1 21:25

Yeah , for many , many years .

Speaker 2 21:27

Wow .

Speaker 3 21:28

And I took it very seriously and I took my school very seriously . I went to Northwestern and I , like I just worked my balls off while I was there , like I did , and , and and had the greatest time ever doing it . Um , but the one thing at the time that was not necessarily taught at Northwestern they may , they may , have changed things now was the business of acting . There was , it was sort of like right , you have all these skills , go with God . And so I , you know , did , made all the same mistakes that everybody else makes along the way , and and figured things out . But again , I lucked out because the first professional job I had was at the Goodman Theater , with a director named Mary Zimmerman , and for those of you who don't know Mary Zimmerman , she is a MacArthur genius . She , uh , we went on to do 18 productions together .

Speaker 3 22:19

Oh , my gosh , which was my first Broadway show , which is a show called Metamorphosis , and she is just an incredible creator , an incredible human . So I lucked into , I just lucked into this incredible artistic community in Chicago .

Speaker 1 22:33

Yeah , and .

Speaker 3 22:33

I do think the Chicago Theater community and acting community is incredible . It's a beautiful place to like become an adult as an actor . It's a beautiful place to be an artist because it's a very collaborative playing ground .

Speaker 2 22:48

We had . We had , we had Purvis Chinon , oh yeah , so Purvis .

Speaker 3 22:51

Yeah , he and I know each other from Chicago , from Chicago Exactly , and he was like talking about how he saw you in plays and how that was . So it's fun , yeah , yeah it's fun and like and and it's and it's . It's been interesting Interesting is probably the right word for it Hearing people who are like currently very successful actors and actresses telling me oh , I saw you in Metamorphosis when I was in school and you that inspired me to do things , and part of me is like how old am I ? And ?

Speaker 2 23:21

then the other part is very is very touched by that , because I was breastfeeding on my mother at the time and exactly Exactly I was negative two years old when I was in Yotaro and heard your voice , but what I appreciated about that ?

Speaker 3 23:36

what I appreciate so much about that is that I did not have that . And yeah , and I did not . You know , I grew up in Orange County and California , which is not the most at the time , was not the most diverse .

Speaker 2 23:50

Right , right .

Speaker 3 23:52

Now there's obviously a big Indian community , but but I I never felt like I was . I didn't feel a sense of prejudice around me , I didn't feel racism . It was just like huh , you're different , and so that was kind of how I lived my life . I was like I'm different , I wanted to look like everybody else , and I was very sad in biology class when I discovered that I couldn't have blonde babies .

Speaker 2 24:17

but I I also accepted the fact that like look , you are something unlike you are something unlike what is around you .

Speaker 3 24:23

I watched the movie . I think it's called adoption , no , but .

Speaker 2 24:28

I know what you mean . I'm just just sort of relating from the point of view of someone who's raised in New Hampshire was like , right , I always felt this urge like this , this need to stand out , because I do stand out and I wanted them . I wanted to stand out big and then also want to fit in at the same time . I don't know if you relate to that Totally makes sense Absolutely . Like what , which is kind of possible .

Speaker 3 24:51

Also what what it did do for me is it kind of . Even though , like so many kids and so many adults , there was this desire to belong and desire to fit in , there was also a part of me that understood look , I am never going to be like people around me , that is not possible .

Speaker 3 25:08

I'm never going to be exactly like them , so I'm going to have to be OK with that , and I'm going to and I'm part of that means I'm going to have to express myself uniquely , in whatever way . I think that is , and so it's the first time I'm really I did , I had , I still do .

Building Character in Different Performance Mediums

Speaker 3 25:25

I have an older brother who is the greatest brother in the history of mankind . Sorry to all the other brothers out there , but he's just the greatest and in fact he's the one who introduced me to D&D . When I was eight years old he got me the basic Amazing yes and . And just last Saturday was his birthday and I was down at Comic Con doing the Candela panel with Critical Role and we all got to sing him . The whole audience Sing him happy birthday , that's fantastic .

Speaker 3 25:49

It was so cool because I told him , like guys , he's responsible for being here , so let's , let's give him some love , so you've done .

Speaker 1 25:55

You do TTRPG's right . You're a CR Candela . We're talking Dimension 20 . You're , you're . You're getting all the Infinity Stones . You do Broadway . You're a voice actor and character in some of the most popular games in history . What , when you you conquer all these different platforms of performance , when you do , what is your impetus for building character ? What's your starting point ? That is just your core , like your ratatouille , zoom in the eye and this is like where you're building from , because these are not similar at all , like these are different conventions for every type of performance . Where do you , as an artist , start for character ?

Speaker 3 26:38

Honestly , like I wish I could say there is one place , but there isn't . I at all , and I kind of , and I kind of relish that . It changes from project to project . It changes from medium to medium . Sometimes it is just something where I'm like I kind of want to play this kind of character so that's what I'm going to drop for this TTRPG .

Speaker 3 26:55

Other times I'll read a script and the thing that I will catch on to will be one plot point or one physical description , or something about this makes me feel like this voice should sound this way . So there's no any , there's nothing , there's no one way .

Speaker 3 27:09

I just I finally realized uh , many years into beating the crap out of myself for being like why aren't you a better at this technique or this technique ? You need to go to acting class for this . I finally realized no , no , no , no , no . The whole game , the whole game of life , let alone the whole game of acting is , or storytelling is . Learn all the tools you can and then have your own toolbox and know how to use what tools that work for you on what job .

Speaker 2 27:37

Yeah .

Speaker 3 27:37

That's it Like if I'm working on okay , I'm not a handy person , but it's like if I'm working on something that needs a hammer , I'm gonna use a hammer , I'm not gonna use a screwdriver . But if I were constantly only using an hammer for one thing , for every single thing , that's not gonna work , right , right , so I um , and also creating the character , uh , in every form of storytelling , for the most part , is such a collaborative effort . Yeah , um , that , that , and especially when the script is already written , or when , or when you walk into a video game and they've already created this beautiful animated character and you're just coming into voice , it there's , there's , there's so much that's already laid out for you . It really is just a game of yes , and it's really just a game of you know what else ? Oh and , and about this , how , about this ? Oh . So there's just this throwing things at the wall .

Speaker 3 28:25

A ttrpg is a whole different thing , because obviously you get to start with what you want to start with and , like I said , sometimes I mean sometimes it's something very deep that I grab on to , and sometimes it's just I want a character with this accent . Yeah , right , I don't want to be like a surfer dude in this .

Speaker 1 28:42

Yeah , yeah , I just want to be like I , just I'm .

Speaker 3 28:44

I'm about to start filming one where , um uh , I just uh I decided I was like you know what I'm in a mood today , so I want this character to be a total dick yeah and that's who it's gonna be . That character is gonna be for the rest of this like and it might be , and it'll develop into something bigger .

Speaker 3 28:59

Yeah , yeah , but it'll develop into something bigger , because there's no way if you can't stand it forever , yeah but also there's when you've done this long enough , or when you dive in deep enough , and when you have enough of a commitment to the story . You can't possibly leave something at one dimension or two dimensions . You , you just make it more and more complex , because it's not fun if you dumped .

Speaker 2 29:19

Well , not , it's especially in tabletop , right like , I feel , a role-play game specifically like yes , I think like you know , that's what I've noticed .

Speaker 2 29:27

I'm relatively new to the space , but like I noticed that you that , by virtue of of spending so much time together , eventually you , you have to get to some of the whys . Like , why are we together ? Why are we adventuring ? Yeah , why are you here ? What are you fighting for ? Like you start to ask these questions and you and by you know we're all improvisers , so we're like gotta come up with something .

Speaker 2 29:48

Whether you've been meditating or not , and , and I do think , yes , and yourself , like whatever you came up with in that moment , right ? So ?

Speaker 3 29:55

all of those things I do think need to be determined somewhat . Determined , either ahead of time or in your session . Zero , you know why are you ?

Speaker 2 30:03

coming together . Yeah , why are ?

Speaker 3 30:04

you all here and there are like I . It's very important to me with TTRPGs to know at least one super strength , uh like character strength and much talk about ability squares , but like one super strength , that this like one place . This character is awesome , really really good at and one thing that is a . That is a weak point , yeah , or a fear , or something .

Speaker 3 30:26

That is an equal use of some flaw , yeah , and it's not necessarily fatal flaw , though it could be but something that either they perceive as a flaw or something that the world could perceive as a flaw because if I don't have that kind of inner conflict going on . It's , it's again . I like that complexity .

Speaker 3 30:43

Yeah , yeah , I really like things to have complexity and then when you have other players like you guys and we have things to play off of , then you can kind of sand the edges of the stuff . Sure , I can kind of go in there and be like , oh , this thing I had kind of thought about myself is not actually what's happening once . I'm opposite this person because now that I'm connected to this character and I'm having this conversation , I realize , oh , that thing , I thought about my character is not actually true , cool and it's just like in real life when you meet new people and you have new relationships .

Speaker 1 31:13

They change you that's the thing you're so collaborative like , not like everything you do , you're just so like let's share the energy . And I feel like when we were at the table at DaySeaQuest , it was constantly like I felt like anytime we interacted , you were like I want to take you on , like I need this from you , and it wasn't just I'm talking at you , it was like I , we need to get out of this room together . For this reason , I was like this is easy , like this , you make it so easy to just be in character well , thank you that .

Speaker 3 31:41

That means a lot to me , because I do think one of the greatest things about about TTRPGs , home games , shows , whatever .

Speaker 3 31:49

What ? The most beautiful things about that is that it's not just storytelling , it's collaborative storytelling , which means you get to create something that has never existed before , while you are appreciating the virtuosity of the people across the table and discovering things in the moment that couldn't be written . So many of the TTRPGs that I have played the end , like the shows that I've done you would never in a million years thought that that's how they were going to end . But that's how they ended . Right and it became because of the role of the dice and the commitment to the story and other people lifting each other up and other people filling in where the other people couldn't , and it that's just so fun and , as an actor especially , it's so fulfilling , because we don't really get that very often , if at all . Right , you're like a lot of things are scripted .

Speaker 2 32:34

Yeah 100% and like you get these big emotional payoffs in TTRPGs that you know you typically can't get in a normal improv show you get it from TTRPG because we've done the work before the groundwork of the sessions .

Speaker 2 32:48

We did too for for for basic quests right , we did session negative one and a session zero and really laid out laid a bunch of groundwork and I think we had some huge emotional moments that I did not see necessarily coming ahead of time , and that is that is so special . Real quick , before we jump into more unduly , I'm just gonna take a moment to say , while we're talking about TTRPGs , hey , we're all going to GenCon and this podcast should be out before we go .

Speaker 2 33:15

So we would love for you to come visit us at GenCon . We're gonna be there at the nevermore space , which is actually outside of GenCon itself . It's a , it's an off-site . Oh , we're seeing , we're gonna see Charlie the puppy , I think right now there it is a little shining situation is . It is your puppy in that rug oh okay , there we .

Speaker 1 33:49

Oh okay , I was like this is Blair .

Speaker 3 33:51

Witch . What happened here ?

Speaker 2 33:52

Charlie , come here , charlie what's that ? Like for a second . I was like was it the modem that you wish ? No , sorry .

Speaker 3 34:00

I couldn't . I did hard to do that this is why I'm better in front of the camera no that .

Speaker 2 34:04

Yeah , that was that's your directorial debut and it was amazing , so , please , come visit us at GenCon , at the nevermore space 11 30 am on Saturday at GenCon

Discussion on Character Development and GenCon

Speaker 2 34:15

. If you're there , gencon , for those that don't know , is like the biggest tgrgbg or the tabletop convention , I think in the US at least . Right , it's a huge absolutely it's massive . I've only been there once , oh , you know , oh .

Speaker 2 34:29

I've been once it was such a blast . Oh man , there's some cool installations and stuff there . I played a the last time I went , at the only time I went . We played like a live dungeon true dungeon , I think it was called with Will Wheaton and Felicia today and like it was like you . It was like you walk into a maze . It was sort of like a room escape before . Room escapes were cool , but you play as dnd characters and you like roll against actual actors , playing like the ice princess that you're fighting . It was really fucking cool . So highly recommend you go check it out . But mostly , come , come , come , visit us at GenCon yes , if you do , that sounds we'll be floating around Saturday and Sunday all right back to our schedule and we'll have time .

Speaker 3 35:09

Yes , we'll have chai and snacks . We'll have chai ready for you that's right , 11 , 30 in the morning , so what more could you want ? Yeah , we'll need it .

Speaker 2 35:17

I'll drop it . I'll drop the link in the chat and how you can get tickets , if they're hopefully still available . We're halfway sold out right now and we haven't really announced it at all so jump in if you can , and I'll , and I'll drop it into chat as well . So , yeah , come , come , visit us all . Right back to our regular scheduled unjali . Yeah , we've got a question for Danny's corner .

Speaker 1 35:38

Uh , and I think this is a great question to throw to you um , does unjali have any advice for getting into characters , both for ttrpgs and for voice acting ? Slash pre-written characters and finding what fits for them . So finding that character , kind of like , you know , trying on that costume , what to ? You right right right , uh , uh , guiding light for this works . I'm , or I'm not doing this . How do you ? What's that instinct ?

Speaker 3 36:04

it's , and it's such a great question and it's such a big question . I'm not going to be able to attack all of it here , but part of what I said before is is very true is usually when you read a script or you you hear about like a setting or whatever , there's something that pops out at you , whether it is thinking of a sound , whether it's thinking of an image , whether it's you read the script and there's a particular line that rings a certain way , there's something that jumps out at you and any one of those things can be the starting point for a character uh anyone .

Speaker 3 36:36

It could be a word , it could be something another character says about you in a previous scene . If you've been given the whole script , that is very , very helpful , but whatever is the one thing that jumps out with you , I feel like that's a lovely seed to start with , and just kind of let it bloom and see and see what comes up . Also , um , for actual like on-camera work and and theater work , I cannot stress enough and this is gonna sound so cheesy , but not cheesy , it was gonna sound so weird I cannot stress enough the value of footwear , if you can figure out what it is .

Speaker 3 37:08

Uh , what kind of shoes this character wears .

Speaker 2 37:10

I've never heard this advice before in my life . I love this . Go okay .

Speaker 3 37:14

And the reason I say this is because when I am doing a play and you get to tech rehearsals and for those of you who don't know , tech rehearsals is when the costumes and the lights and and the , and you're on the set for the first time , and when you put on that costume for the first time , already that's pretty magical , like you're putting yourself in the in the clothes of the character . But then when you figure out how a character physically walks in their own shoes , uh-huh , there is something that , just For me , I just kind of settle in and sometimes when I want to come up with a character , like , okay , here's an example for Symmetra once , I you , I usually run around in high heel boots . It's a thing that I already do . So the day that I showed up for the first recording of Symmetra , I was wearing my high heel boots .

Speaker 3 37:59

Symmetra's got her high heels and I was like cool , I see this , this is gonna work for me and I , this posture is gonna work for me , this whole thing is gonna work for me . I'm gonna wear these shoes for every session that I have with her , just to be able to be like no , this is where she stands , she's elegant , she's she's foot , she's not off-balance , she's like she's got this elegance about her . Nothing can knock her like there's , there's something about that and you can do that with Any wardrobe piece . You can do that with you know your hair . You can , it sounds .

Speaker 3 38:28

It sounds Superficial but it's also if you're in drama school , a lot of times they say working outside in . Oh yeah , you know , sometimes people in in in drama school you end up doing a lot of animal work to find Physicality of certain animals .

Speaker 2 38:43

Yeah , I remember doing that , your character acting one-on-one , and you're like why are we ?

Speaker 3 38:49

doing this . I don't understand . This is dumb , but there really is something to I .

Speaker 2 38:54

I didn't mind it . I got my face that licked I got . I got licked in the face by a very pretty girl once , so that was fine . Oh , really into her wolf character , pretty wool apparently she was consent , please , ladies , gentlemen , but .

Speaker 3 39:14

But there is just something really lovely about finding the physicality of a character that I really really like . And when I'm playing , ttrpg is obviously , you know , 90% of the time , or most , I should say 90% , I don't know what percent , but usually you're sitting and For me finding the physicality , even sitting , makes a difference . I just like finding the physicality of the character , figuring out how , how they carry themselves , what I think they're wearing and how would that be . How do they breathe if you know you breathe differently when you're in a corset ?

Speaker 2 39:43

Yeah , oh yeah , differently , if you can bring .

Speaker 3 39:46

Well , you ladies , here's a hot tip for you that I got the first time I wore a corset . Make sure you take a deep Breath . Yes , and not a deep breath where you're sucking in your stomach right deep breath , where your stomach just kind of relaxes . So you know that you can fully get your when you get fitted for your corset . Don't worry about how tiny your waist is . Worry about how full you can get your lungs . Otherwise you might pass out , and you don't want to do that pro tips .

Speaker 2 40:10

Unjuli , we , we lose you a little bit , so I want to know it's okay . I want to ask you one more question . Then we're gonna play this game , which is just I , you know , high point , low , low point .

Overcoming Career Challenges and Finding Success

Speaker 2 40:22

I think it's easy to always talk about successes . I would love for you to talk , tell us about and I think we've heard a lot of great high points . So maybe tell us about a time in your career where it was like real , a real challenge , or maybe I don't know if you ever had .

Speaker 2 40:31

This moment did you have a moment where you were like I got a . Maybe I can still be a surgeon is . Was there ever that moment I got such a good one ? How did you power through ?

Speaker 3 40:41

such a good one , so I can't remember if this was 2014 or 15 , but you know , I just come back from doing this , this free , broadly run of a show . Things were great . Within the course of like three months , my manager dropped me and then all of a sudden , I I couldn't , I couldn't get shot in LA , like I couldn't , I couldn't get , I couldn't get an audition , I'm alone book a job . And I started doing all those casting director workshops . When those were big . I did like 52 of them in 40 days like , oh my god , I was .

Speaker 3 41:15

I was just go , go , go , go go and Nothing really came out of those and I was like , well , okay , obviously these are bullshit , first of all , but second , but the then I took a course with a casting director , an audition course , and At the beginning and the end of the course we had this kind of like circle conversation with everyone . And the final day , and even in the class , I was like I know , I'm doing great work . I'm doing great work . At the end I just broke down crying and I said I'm doing the best work of my life and I can't get anyone to see it . And this casting director , christy Pays on . God bless her said . I think maybe you just need to take a break , and I don't mean a break like quitting , I mean a break from squeezing it so hard .

Speaker 2 41:53

I think you need to just like let yourself not .

Speaker 3 41:57

Let yourself not do okay , workshops , let yourself .

Speaker 2 42:01

Some breathing . Take a deep breath before you tie the corset .

Speaker 3 42:06

So what I did was Because obviously money was an issue , because I couldn't get work . Yeah , I was like you know what I'm gonna do ? I'm gonna drive for lift this summer . I mean , I drive my , I've drive my friends around all the time .

Speaker 2 42:19

I have a .

Speaker 3 42:20

Prius . It's very easy . Why not drive around new friends ? Yeah , and so I took this job . I took that when I started driving for lift and there was pressure East , obviously on my pocketbook , but also I was having a chance to interact with a ton of people in a really fun way . Yeah , I'm not a person who likes to go out to bars . My , my husband , who's my boyfriend at the time he was on tour , so I didn't really like I just wanted to hang out with people , but I didn't want to go . You know , I didn't want to do it the standard way , yeah , and so it alleviated so much . And I also remember during that time I had I sat down with my manager one day and I was like I've never thought this before but like Maybe this is the universe telling me that that was it , but that's like the most success . I maybe , I'm supposed to not do this .

Speaker 3 43:02

And she said to me and again God bless this woman , she might . I've been with my manager as a representative , either an agent or a manager Since 2007 . Oh wow , that's super special yeah so she said to me , she said , honestly , you know what , usually when someone says that to me , I tell them totally get it . Why don't you take a break , like , just like , just stop for a while , don't do this . And if they want to quit , you know , I let them quit .

Speaker 2 43:25

You're not allowed .

Speaker 3 43:25

You're too good , you're gonna figure it out .

Speaker 2 43:28

Wow .

Speaker 3 43:29

And as soon as she said that , I was like Because I never , first of all , quitting was never an option . Yeah , I don't understand why you would quote , unquote , quit acting , unless you hated it , because the only thing you need to do to be able to act in some form for the rest of your life is not die .

Speaker 2 43:46

Yeah , the bar is low .

Speaker 3 43:48

Yeah , you eat , you be community theater , it might be creating things with your friends , but that's all you have to do is still be breathing and you can create and you can act . So quitting was never an option , whether or not I thought I could be successful at it . I was sure many times I've had that , but alleviating that level of stress on it and and allowing myself to have a life and being like you know what . I am gonna travel , I will sit around and wait for auditions .

Speaker 2 44:13

I love that you took both pieces of advice almost you like . Took the advice to step away and the advice to not to like lean in . It's like you got , you got .

Speaker 3 44:21

Because it wasn't . Yeah , it wasn't step away , it was stop squeezing it .

Speaker 2 44:25

Yeah , yeah , that's a difference .

Speaker 3 44:27

There's a big difference , right and that , I feel like , goes on , goes for life . If you , if you want something so bad that you're just yearning for it the whole time , you are telling yourself you don't have it .

Speaker 1 44:38

Right , oh , totally , I see you . You know what I mean .

Speaker 3 44:41

If you're just like squeezing it like oh god , why does that person successful and I'm not ? Well , part of that sentence is I'm not , I'm not . Rather than being like , rather than using other people's success or other people's abundance or other people's relationships as evidence of what is possible , yeah , that , that shift of like oh wow , so so did that . That's so cool . That means that that's possible in the world I wonder what else is possible .

Speaker 3 45:03

That's yeah when you stop squeezing it so hard . All of a sudden , there's this flow of whatever is yours to come through . Right and I don't believe in the whole like well , if I didn't book the job , it's not mine and I'm supposed to feel good about that . Oh , it feels like shit . You're allowed to feel like shit , please let yourself be disappointed .

Speaker 3 45:21

Have your emotions , but don't allow disappointment to turn into Judgment of yourself and failure . That's the rejection . That's how we feel rejected . We don't get rejected by jobs . You can't get rejected from a job where only one person is getting the job and the 99 other people who auditioned Are getting it . That's not rejection . That's one person got it . Now young people don't suck . Yeah , but the rejection part is when we tell ourselves I didn't get that job , I'm such a loser .

Speaker 3 45:47

Yeah , I can get that job and the failure . I'm never gonna succeed . We reject ourselves Right , so have the disappointment , allow yourself to have it , feel it , bitch about it Whatever you need to do , but don't use it as proof of what can't happen .

Speaker 2 46:01

Yeah , love it .

Guessing Real or Fake Board Games

Speaker 3 46:03

I think , I think that's a big thing that keeps me going .

Speaker 2 46:05

I think that's glorious and a great way to sort of end our , our interview section . Actually , do you have a little bit time ?

Speaker 3 46:11

Games . Yes , okay , create this beautiful game . Sorry , we'd love to play it .

Speaker 2 46:15

So , omar , take us away , let's play . Since we are going to a board game convention , I feel like it's perfect that we play a fun little game about it , yeah .

Speaker 1 46:21

All right , folks , we've got a couple of games here and , uh , some of them are real , some of them are fake . What's gonna ? Happen is we're gonna tell you the game and I'm gonna give you a little pitch on the game . You got to tell me if it's real or fake . Okay , oh boy , I'm bad at these things all of the pitches I have made up . Okay , so all of these pitches I've made up , but the some games are real , some are not .

Speaker 2 46:46

Oh , so the description fantastic game .

Speaker 3 46:48

So the picture that even the real games , yeah , okay even the real games are . But these are . Are these are tabletop games or these are video games or these are board ?

Speaker 2 46:56

games board games are all board games in honor of gen con .

Speaker 1 47:00

So here we go . All right , folks , town dump . This game is the dumps , the town dump , that is .

Speaker 3 47:08

This is a game where kids get to run .

Speaker 2 47:10

The town dump and find out what it's like to take care of the trash Real or fake , hold , hold , wait , hold on a second because there's an image Always supposed to be seeing . This Did you .

Speaker 1 47:21

Are you saying that you potentially every board game has an image ? Every game has an image .

Speaker 2 47:30

Okay , can I just say bravo for that , that is amazing .

Speaker 3 47:33

I'm so , I'm so in .

Speaker 2 47:35

Anjali , no , looking it up .

Speaker 3 47:37

No , I'm looking at this because I can't see on my , on this , on the whatever we're on stream , yard stream , dream con , I don't know what this is I can't see it , it's too .

Speaker 1 47:46

It's too blurry so I'm looking at all right . So , true or real or fake , town dump .

Speaker 3 47:53

I hope it's fake . Please let it be fake .

Speaker 1 47:55

Are you voting fake on today ? I'm voting fake , okay .

Speaker 2 47:58

Okay , I want to , just because I got the four-year-old who he is obsessed with garbage trucks like True story , kids would love this game .

Speaker 3 48:07

If it's not , I was gonna say if it isn't real , someone's gotta make .

Speaker 2 48:10

I'm gonna say if this isn't real , I want to make it , because kids can't go nuts for this game . I want to say real , I think it's real , let's go .

Speaker 1 48:18

Okay , ready , I want it to be . So I'm usually say fake Son Dp . Say real three , two , one . Delvin reveal Is it real or fake ? That's right , it is real .

Speaker 2 48:31

Wait , how do we know ?

Speaker 3 48:32

like so suddenly , if you're okay .

Speaker 2 48:33

I guess I'm on that side .

Speaker 3 48:35

You're on that side . Okay , okay , okay town dump with motorized action bulldozer .

Speaker 1 48:40

The box unfolds into a large town dump with boxes of garbage in the middle .

Speaker 3 48:44

Can we play this ?

Speaker 1 48:45

game at jen con .

Speaker 2 48:46

Oh my gosh , please we have to get it .

Speaker 1 48:48

Players take turns revving the motorized bulldozer and sending it into the dump with their side of the board , the object of the game is to push as much trash as you can out of the dump on your opponent's side .

Speaker 3 49:00

Oh , excellent your job is to dump on your friends . How do we dump on your friends ?

Speaker 1 49:05

Okay , so sunday's got a tiny little lead , but it's anyone's game right now .

Speaker 3 49:08

Are you ready for ?

Speaker 1 49:08

the next one . Yes , all right . This next game is called next in line . Heavy is the head that wears the crown , so off with their head . This is a game where kids get to learn about how Rules and responsibilities are passed down through the british monarchy , depending on who dies and is next in line Real or fake .

Speaker 3 49:32

No , I say no . My shirt says no . No , absolutely not . I say no no , no .

Speaker 2 49:39

Why are you so confident ? It's not .

Speaker 3 49:41

It's I , I , I , I'm , I'm just . I veto it whether it is , whether it is real or not . I am vetoing this game . I , I say no .

Speaker 2 49:51

No , okay .

Speaker 3 49:52

No , I love that . I the king is dead . Who lives next ? Long live whoever is next .

Speaker 2 49:58

No , no , absolutely no . If it said whomever is next , I would have said yes too , but it doesn't , so I'm gonna say no as well , I think this is bogus .

Speaker 1 50:06

Wow , you both say no , yeah , I crash in anigans . You're not gonna believe this , but you're correct .

Speaker 2 50:11

It is fake . This is a game that we made up . It's a good game , though Well played . Yeah , it is a good . In light of the , you know the queen's passing , it's a good .

Speaker 3 50:21

I like that . It's also . I think you have like the Milton Bradley thing in the corner .

Speaker 1 50:25

This is all delvin's photoshop photo manipulation abilities . We're very excited . Excellent , we're very excited . This will be the next movie .

Speaker 3 50:36

I'm a little bummed the town dump is real because I thought maybe we had a like a moneymaker on our hands .

Speaker 1 50:40

Guys , I think well , maybe this next one will be our go-to We'll find out . Are you ready for , uh , thiele Amili , uh , touchy , touchy , the hands-on game that really gets your hands on no , stop it .

Speaker 2 50:57

This is , this is the gate .

Speaker 3 51:00

It's like the opposite of the game of consent basically , I'm so oh no , this is petrifying .

Speaker 1 51:08

Wait so what's the pitch ? Give me the pitch . The pitch is touchy touchy , the hands-on game that really gets your hands on .

Speaker 3 51:17

I mean , I'm , I'm , what's . What's killing me right now is immediately . I'm like that's probably a game . Like an oldie timey game , like maybe a game from like when , when we were kids , like I feel like this would have been a game in like the early 80s , like I could totally feel this .

Speaker 2 51:34

Don't play this game with uncle trevor .

Speaker 3 51:36

Oh , no , all right .

Speaker 2 51:38

I'm gonna say . I'm gonna say it's not real .

Speaker 1 51:42

What do you say ?

Speaker 3 51:42

I'm gonna say it's real , I'm gonna say it's real , Because also . I feel like it's like one of those games where , like you blindfold yourselves and you put your hands in different things . I'm just gonna say yes , because it's so horrible . I want to change my All right . It's so horrible because it's so horrible .

Speaker 1 51:59

Okay , let's reveal it .

Speaker 2 52:02

No , I'm locked in . I already said it . I meant to , actually meant to say real and but I said not real , so let's just take it . Well , you might get a point .

Speaker 1 52:08

You might get a point . It is real All tied up . So play begins with all the items inside the box and the stack of cards in the top of the box .

Speaker 3 52:20

The top card is real .

Speaker 1 52:22

Players put their hands inside the box to attempt to recover by feel , only the item pictured on the card . The winner is the player who finds more of the items it's glory .

Speaker 2 52:32

All the game is what it is that's terrifying .

Speaker 3 52:36

That is terrifying . No , but that like they just made it sound dirty , it's not actually a really mealy mealy yeah there's a couple more .

Speaker 2 52:45

Let's do it , it's anyone's game .

Speaker 1 52:46

Are you ready ? Yeah , all right Next up , we've got vanilla ice wrap game . That's right . The vanilla ice electronic rap game ice , ice baby , more like nice , nice baby . What do you ?

Speaker 3 53:00

do . I don't understand what the game that's all you got Is it real .

Speaker 2 53:05

I think I might have had this game . I don't know , I don't know .

Speaker 3 53:11

I don't know , I own this game .

Speaker 2 53:12

I own this game . I would . If I , if I my parents would let me buy anything , I would probably bought it , I was , so I was obsessed with the meet up games would say I want this to be real , I'm going to go real .

Speaker 1 53:25

I'm going to go real with an electronic one box Okay .

Speaker 3 53:28

Yeah , I think it feels very I wanted to be real , because again , it's so bad , okay , okay , so bad , and I get yeah .

Speaker 1 53:37

I mean , I was like oh , I'm going to approach it , oh yeah .

Speaker 3 53:41

Oh , I feel like I was like oh , I'm going to approach Right . And there's another reason , and I hope this doesn't sound . I feel like the fact that it's vanilla ice and that there's a bunch of occasion folks on here , I feel like that there's something about that that felt like , yes , this could exist . I do not see .

Speaker 2 54:04

Actually , every black child that auditioned to be on the box is like no , yeah , I'm not doing it .

Speaker 3 54:10

No , like it might my like . Everything in my soul tells me this is yeah .

Speaker 2 54:14

I'm not doing this .

Speaker 3 54:15

But this , this , this , this yeah . And I hope that doesn't offend anyone , because some of the most soulful people that I know and some of the best rappers I know are Caucasians . Yeah and there are people of all colors and all backgrounds who can do all sorts of music and all sorts of things . There's just something about these are some gory skin .

Speaker 2 54:34

Yeah , no , yeah , you don't apologize .

Speaker 3 54:39

This is .

Speaker 2 54:40

This is very much a go to him . What's crazy what's crazy is is that that little boy in the right is actually Eminem .

Speaker 3 54:46

Yeah , yeah , his origin story , we've got three more folks , so this is gonna get aggressive because someone's gotta take it Okay okay , all right , next up , we've got business monkeys , bull market ,

Monkey Market and Pillow Fight Game

Speaker 3 54:59

bear market .

Speaker 1 54:59

How about monkey market ?

Speaker 2 55:01

That's bananas .

Speaker 1 55:02

I'm out .

Speaker 3 55:06

No , it's not real .

Speaker 2 55:08

Not real ?

Speaker 3 55:09

It's not real .

Speaker 2 55:10

I mean , you both think it's adorable .

Speaker 3 55:12

It's freaking adorable .

Speaker 2 55:14

Well , I play , it is it is not real .

Speaker 3 55:16

I want to be a business monkey . In fact , I kind of feel like I am a you know , what ? I climb all over the place and I do business , so I'm I don't eat bananas .

Speaker 2 55:27

Bananas are not , you know , I'm switching because we got , we , we got to have some Opposition here .

Speaker 3 55:31

I'm just gonna switch to real .

Speaker 2 55:33

I'm gonna go .

Speaker 3 55:33

Okay , it's definitely not real .

Speaker 2 55:35

I okay Well it's the second edition , so it's gotta be .

Speaker 3 55:39

Second edition . I mean , what was the first edition , I wonder ? Were they like it was ?

Speaker 2 55:46

Intern monkeys . There's a lot of Unpaid intern monkeys unpaid intern monkeys exactly .

Speaker 1 55:52

Believe it or not . This is fake . Come on , made up Business monkeys , invented by my roommate , mira Stella . What I just went ? Hey , give me a fake , fake board game name . And they went business monkeys .

Speaker 2 56:09

That's amazing .

Speaker 3 56:11

Already the chat right now . I'm just .

Speaker 1 56:16

If a bunch of monkeys could write Shakespeare , I mean , imagine what a corporation could do and then walked away .

Speaker 2 56:21

That's so funny apropos of nothing .

Speaker 1 56:24

Yeah , oh .

Speaker 3 56:32

TV right . Here we go two more , so this is where it's gonna come down the line .

Speaker 1 56:34

Are you ready ? This is our penultimate game We've got . Hey , pa , there's a goat on the roof . Take this up with the man upstairs who happens to be a goat , real or fake . I'll let you go first . I don't .

Speaker 3 56:48

I don't understand the game .

Speaker 1 56:52

Wait , hey , there's a goat on the roof . Take this up with the man upstairs who happens to be a goat .

Speaker 2 56:57

It's like an early version of mousetrap . Basically .

Speaker 3 57:02

I'm gonna say , do we , do we take visual artifacts or ?

Speaker 1 57:06

mousetrap and then just say , hey , there's a good on the roof .

Speaker 3 57:09

That's what it looks like to me . That's that's kind of why I'm like it looks really real .

Speaker 2 57:13

Listen , I want to say real , but I'm getting the game . I have to catch up here and there's only two left .

Speaker 3 57:19

Okay , so I'm gonna say , I'm gonna say it's not real , just for the sake of difference .

Speaker 2 57:22

No , no , no , let's do that I'm saying say what you want to say , then I'm basically just gonna say , I said not real . Oh , you said not real . Oh , I thought you said real . Okay , great , I will say real , then . Great , I think it's real , I think it's stupid enough to be real .

Speaker 3 57:37

And again , I want to , and it looks really like . If this is , if this is not real , this is some exceptional photos .

Speaker 2 57:43

I was gonna say that's okay . So you think ?

Speaker 1 57:45

hey potters , the goat on the roof is real . Okay .

Speaker 2 57:48

Yeah , yeah , I wanted to lock in .

Speaker 1 57:49

Everyone's locked in . Locked in it is real .

Speaker 3 57:55

Come on , let's go . I mean it is , it does look very , very , very real and as much as I believe in Delvin's amazing Abilities like that .

Speaker 2 58:04

Well , that was that would have been . Except , honestly , I was thinking that maybe , like they changed like a word or two , you know what I mean yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah .

Speaker 3 58:10

Like you said , is this mouse trap , and we Last .

Speaker 1 58:14

All right , who's the ?

Speaker 2 58:17

goat of this game .

Speaker 3 58:21

Wow , or should it be , or should it be .

Speaker 1 58:25

Wow , the pillow fight game . Ladies , leave your men at home . The bed is full of pillows and we are about to throw , oh Boy ladies , leave your men at home . The bed is full of pillows and we are about to throw .

Speaker 3 58:42

Like people , look at this job like , just because of the pitch , I want to say no , but I'm looking at this game . I could totally , 100% imagine this being now .

Speaker 1 58:51

I want to be clear what you're looking at . I'm not saying it's really enough , but what you're looking at is a game where you just imitate a pillow fight .

Speaker 3 58:59

Oh , oh by spinning wheels .

Speaker 1 59:01

Do you think that's something that someone really made up as a product , or something that we thought was hilarious ?

Speaker 3 59:09

Yeah , okay , yes , no , if it's for girl , it's not a thing . You're saying I'll tell you what . I'm not real , because girls are not the ones who have pillow fights . Men who think girls have pillow fights are the ones , we imagine .

Speaker 2 59:21

Them .

Speaker 1 59:21

Oh you think that problematic ? The problematic do a delve into night .

Speaker 3 59:27

No , no , no , no , no . I think that it's hilarious that you thought like . I think the fact that you thought it was hilarious makes you not Problematic but don't but anything problematic .

Speaker 2 59:35

Men ran Milton Bradley back then and probably tried to make this game , thinking that girls would and still very meta possibly .

Speaker 3 59:42

I'm gonna say no , just on principle .

Speaker 2 59:44

I'm gonna go real . I'm gonna go real , just on principle , just cuz we , we gotta do .

Speaker 1 59:48

I think it's real , the pillow fight game .

Speaker 2 59:50

Wow , the pillow fight game . I'm in .

Speaker 1 59:53

I Will absolutely do it . It's real . Wow , the pillow fight game was .

Speaker 3 1:00:04

I'm I'm actually okay with not winning this game . I'm really okay with not winning this game . Just again , on principle . I'm perfectly fine with with . No , I'm normally not okay with not winning , but I'm very not , I'm very .

Speaker 1 1:00:16

You can take it , you can take the win , if you can tell me . Milton Bradley had two games , one for girls , which was wow , the pillow fight game .

Speaker 3 1:00:23

And they had one for boys called pal the blank game .

Speaker 1 1:00:26

If you can tell me what the boys game was .

Speaker 3 1:00:29

You can take it . You said how the blanket .

Speaker 1 1:00:32

So it's no , no , no , so it's a blank game . So it's wow , the pillow fight game for girls , and then there's pal , the blank game for boys . Can you tell me what the game for boys was ?

Speaker 3 1:00:44

It either had to do with guns or punching people . I'm gonna say sadly , I'm gonna say guns . Yeah , I think it is guns too .

Speaker 2 1:00:52

I like , so like the gun fight game Basically , I will let Sundeep decide because , here's the thing .

Speaker 1 1:00:59

The game is called pal , the cannon game for boys .

Speaker 2 1:01:05

Yeah , that's artillery , I'm gonna . Yeah , that's good .

Speaker 1 1:01:08

In that case , our winner for this game by playing , by by calling up the sexism I Love and take it in the end .

Speaker 2 1:01:17

You .

Speaker 3 1:01:26

This is I . I want to be honest right here , not that I'm not be normally honest , but I have to tell you this is the best on podcast . On TV show game I have ever played . This is the most fun yeah , I have ever . You stepped it up like you went , you went for . Jimmy Fallon and I'm very happy about it . Thank you it is an act , because this is freaking excellent . I'm so , I'm so proud of you , baby .

Speaker 2 1:01:49

Oh , thank you , Thank you . Well , I'm sure . By the way , this means that you're technically the host next week , because whoever wins the game is the host .

Speaker 3 1:01:55

Fantastic , I was gonna . I was literally just gonna say . I was literally just gonna say I'm so sad I have to leave because I'm having so much fun with you guys . So anytime I can come back , I will happily come back if you will have me , because I'm so sad that I have to leave and I love you guys and I'm excited to play .

Speaker 2 1:02:10

Thanks for sticking around with a story that we took the extra time .

Speaker 1 1:02:15

Because , we had to figure out about wow thank you so much of Lee , and we'll see you in less than a week at Gencon .

Speaker 3 1:02:22

You will too , and anybody . If you want to reach me , you can find me at a few places . You can find me online at sweet on , with three ease , because apparently I am the only Indian person that doesn't care about spelling I , I . You can find me . You can email me at Anjali at I am fun size calm . That is a public-facing email address , also private email address , so don't worry , in my , my assistants won't see it . This is purely me .

Speaker 3 1:02:47

And then you see , sweet Anj , I am fun size . I'm missing something . What am I missing ? I don't know , but you can ask me one of those other fighters . And Please , if you guys can , not only come visit us at Gencon but keep an eye out . Pre-order stray gods the role-playing musical , is coming out August 10th . Let's go . First of its kind , it is a musical video game and it is starring Troy Baker and Laura Bailey and Mary Elizabeth Mclin and Janina Kavan car and me and my god .

Speaker 3 1:03:19

Other people that you know and love , kari Peyton . It's an incredible cast . It's the first time . I'm really , really excited and I want it to have a huge . I wanted to have a huge launch the small independent studio Narrated by David Gator and and music by Austin Winterie , who did the music to journey . Yes , it's bound to be Awesome and I hope you all in wow it . And then basic question oh , I'll sign up for our email Because there's so much cool stuff coming your way .

Speaker 2 1:03:49

All right , thanks , anjali , this is awesome . Thank you so much .

Speaker 3 1:03:52

Thank you , guys .

Speaker 1 1:03:53

I will see you soon , soon Bye .

Speaker 2 1:03:58

Well , I'm really go and that's our show , as always . If you want to actually see our faces they're listening to it or check out the VOD Are all the ways you can hang with us . Those are in the show notes . Please a rate and comment ? That is huge . It's hugely helpful . So if you liked what you listen to , then drop us a little little five-star rating .

Speaker 2 1:04:19

Huh , come on , come on Thank you and as always , any like suggestions or feedback or Just weird pictures of your of your pet hedgehog . You can send those to ABCD podcast show at gmailcom or find us on our on the effin funny discord .

Speaker 1 1:04:37

Yes , yes , yes . And we also , of course , want to shout out our sponsored Daisy quest , the TTRPG that starts us , and Other folks who are incredible and amazing . As we mentioned , we will be at Gen Con on .

Speaker 3 1:04:50

Saturday .

Speaker 1 1:04:51

So check that out . In the show notes we should have a link to the event brights that you can sign up for . Or we will tweet it out or , sorry , exit out .

Speaker 3 1:05:00

So go to .

Speaker 1 1:05:02

IQ EST calm . That's Daisy , quest calm .

Speaker 2 1:05:05

There's no exit , matt , real quick before you know . Just just , not a bit . Just , we just enacted that if you sign up to the mailing list , that you get a Code back to you that gives you 15% off of any Daisy quest merch that you might enjoy .

Speaker 1 1:05:29

To post in . People have been posting pics little little piggies of them in the shirt . Yep , it's a great shirt .

Speaker 2 1:05:37

It's a Mandela . It's a Mandela shirt with a d20 at the center . I mean , come on .

Speaker 1 1:05:41

It's really great . So , folks , we also want to thank our Patreons , our patrons and our listeners , and the way we're gonna do it is by , of course , shout not everybody but instead of having son deep take 20 minutes to go find his guitar , that felt bad .

Speaker 2 1:05:59

That felt bad on my soul . That was real . That was real , that felt bad .

Speaker 1 1:06:05

Instead we are each week now gonna shout out , or each episode gonna shout out , folks in a different genre and this week .

Speaker 2 1:06:11

But the live chat is supposed to be able to pick , but this week we just picked on our own , okay .

Speaker 1 1:06:15

Yeah , inspired by the electronic rap game . If you don't mind me taking the first one to set the tone Sunday by all means . All right kick it , kick it , here we go . Oh here we go ready , you ready for this here ?

Speaker 3 1:06:36

we go .

Speaker 1 1:06:38

Joshua , right , you know that the try-in .

Speaker 2 1:06:41

Yeah , tell me I'm Carlo . That's how you feel flow .

Speaker 1 1:06:46

Woozak , I got you back .

Speaker 2 1:06:48

Benjamin low Whoa , whoa , whoa .

Speaker 1 1:06:51

This could take forever Brown going to town .

Speaker 2 1:06:55

Miranda Hollinger . What rise of hollywood ?

Speaker 1 1:06:59

Vaden Know that I'm fading .

Speaker 2 1:07:03

Oh nice , michael long , cuz he's got a shlong . I'm sorry , I'm so sorry .

Speaker 1 1:07:10

Christina Romero in that Carrero .

Speaker 2 1:07:14

Dainis corner , feeling kind of hornier , I only going blue . It's terrible .

Speaker 1 1:07:22

Raylin Fox , cuz you invest in in stocks .

Speaker 2 1:07:26

Selena B , adam Nickerson , nevesh hair tech , nervous Rex .

Speaker 1 1:07:30

Sarah , you gotta go fast . Guys , I'm the cruise dodeca . Couplet Jeremy O'Brien .

Speaker 2 1:07:35

You know , russell Verlick , assault maroon multi-board . Ali-ali oxen free .

Speaker 1 1:07:39

That's how I feel , ali-ali oxen free , philip Disney , kathleen Schlagan do Coddy , reverend Cattino .

Speaker 2 1:07:47

And you know this girl cuz she's got the spark . It's a god leaven god level . Patreon Laura Clark .

Speaker 1 1:07:54

God , level patreon , scribbles and flapjacks because you know that we've got you back .

Speaker 2 1:08:00

And the thing about this last guy . You know I'm gonna break it down , okay .

Speaker 1 1:08:04

He's got a gorgeous face .

Speaker 2 1:08:06

He's the sexiest man in Ohio . He's a god level . Patreon in his name is the real Brandon .

Speaker 1 1:08:14

The show's produced by Diggle and now the show's technical director in .

Speaker 3 1:08:18

Go out on the music .

Speaker 1 1:08:21

This is edited by Sean mayor , oh my gosh . So do you guys do sing , and Molly's the very , and you know this has been an important production .

Speaker 2 1:08:31

I think we have a career in rapping . I think we , I think , yeah , that cadence is perfect .

Speaker 1 1:08:37

That you know that I'm set no notes .

Speaker 2 1:08:44

It's weird , I everybody unsubscribed to the To the twitch just now , that's that must have been an accident .

Speaker 1 1:08:50

No one in chat unless .

Speaker 2 1:08:54

Well , hey , look , on behalf of our co-host and not the prime minister , oman Rajam . I've been the prime minister and hosts on the perique . Mayor Chuckers , be aligned and smothered in Chani . We'll see you next time .