Interview With Anjali Bhimani
/By Ashley Williams
We had a chat with Actress Anjali Bhimani about her new Dungeons and Dragons show Dimension 20: The Ravening War. Premiering exclusively on the Dropout streaming service on Wednesday, May 10. We talk about how she got into D &D, her character and much more.
Justin (Otakus & Geeks): Can you tell us how and when did you get into Dungeons and Dragons?
Anjali Bhimani: When I was eight years old <laugh>. My incredible brother Anish. I wanted to be like him, he was everything I wanted to be. I loved him so much and he gave me the basic d and d set, for Christmas, and I devoured it and immediately wanted to grab the books that he was reading, because those were the books he was reading. So that was the second edition, d and d back then. I devoured those as well and it was so cool. Then it was off to the races. I, I played with kids in my class and kept playing all the way through high school. Then in college, it became a little bit, difficult to run a game, and also keep the grades up in all that business.
Justin (Otakus & Geeks): When it comes to Dungeons and Dragons I’m a total noob. Ashley is the player in our family. However, what I think makes the game so appealing is the freedom of creativity.
Anjali Bhimani: It's all creativity. The whole thing is creativity. I mean, look, yes, there are these giant tones of rules and charts and all of that stuff. But ultimately, any good DM will support this. Ultimately, all that really matters is the story. You can be super crunchy with the rules, but it's an open-book test. It's not like, you have to worry about that. So really the most important thing is playing with your imagination and collaborating and, and telling this sweeping story. There is so much joy that comes out of it from those moments where everything just suddenly falls into place and you had no idea every RPG show that I have done, we, you couldn't have written the ending. Never in a million years, we have thought that's how it was gonna end. You know? And that just comes from people being invested in the story.
Justin (Otakus & Geeks): can you tell us a little bit about the new show and what can fans expect?
Anjali Bhimani: Well, first of all, anyone who watched the first Crown of Candy, will confirm that even though this setting may seem absurd, it is a very serious world that Brennan created and that all the players created in that series. So now you've brought Matt in, and that is obviously fun. There's always fun. It's impossible to be around these people and not have fun. Hold onto your hats because it was definitely a ride and an emotional ride. So be prepared for that. From my character, the thing I think that is the most interesting without spoiling anything is the setting and because of where the story starts, where Lady Mongo has actually mourning the death of her husband, who also happens to be the king. And what do we do? What do we do? More importantly, what does she do? And what I love about playing that character and what I really wanted to explore was, historically I've played very capable characters who really know what they're doing. Or even if they roll badly, they know what they're doing. They, understand handling the environment. This person is being taken completely out of the life she knows and completely out of a place where she has personal power and status and knows that she's capable of handling it. So I wanted to explore, what do you do when you have to completely reinvent yourself. What do you do when your life depends on you letting go of your past? That was very juicy to me. I hope that the audience enjoys it as much as I did.
Ashley (Otakus & Geeks): I was wondering, as an actress, bringing all those skills into D&D, how has that helped? And also how does that hinder sometimes, your role-playing?
Anjali Bhimani: It doesn't hinder in any way. I'm very, very happy to say that I have learned so much about life from acting. A lot of people ask like, how do you know, how do you handle being an actor, you know, you must have to carry so much stuff, so many emotions and all of this stuff into the job. I feel like I've learned more the other way around. It has made me a better person, and better at handling life, and given me a lot of compassion. How has it helped? I mean, collaborative storytelling is theater.
Ashley (Otakus & Geeks): As a theater teacher for a Highschool I can relate.
Anjali Bhimani: You're all on that stage together. Youhave to be working together to tell the same story. And at least in my experience, theater is a wonderful place to learn that you are a small part of a much bigger picture. Because not only are there all the people on stage with you proving that you are not the only thing. But there's a show going on backstage with the crew. There is a well-tuned machine happening back there. Sometimes that's more interesting than what's going on stage, and more choreographed than what's going on stage. In that way, especially the theater that I did mostly when I got outta school, I did a lot of collaborative, very physical theater with a company called The Looking Glass Theater Company. And a director called Mary Zim, named Mary Zimmerman. And the way she does her plays, she has source material like an epic poem. She will cast a cast before she decides who they're playing. You’re really are building the story together and finding the characters together and having that lack of ego that says what it has to be because you want to be what it needs to be for the story. That I think is very, very, very important. I think you enjoy, I don't enjoy D & D when people just care about the crunchiness of it. I enjoy it when we're telling a good yarn. I enjoy it when people are making decisions that they know they wouldn't make in real life. I love it when I roll a natural one and I have to find some reason to justify this giant failure. I love that about it. It's a long-form improv.
Ashley (Otakus & Geeks): What advice would you give to new players about stepping into Dungeons & Dragons that are not familiar with this type of role-playing? Justin is really used to JRPGs in the video game sense.
Anjali Bhimani: Don't worry about it. Your DM and your fellow players are going to help you figure out the crunchy parts. They're gonna figure out the rules. They're gonna help you. They're gonna help. You know, what Die is is a die. What's a 10-sided die? What's a 20-sided die? Everybody's doing this together. You're playing the game together. It's not an elimination game. Thank, thank The Gods. It is not an elimination game. The goal is for everyone to have fun and for everyone, to feel as much a part of that storytelling as anyone else and have fun with it. I find that playing with people who've never played before, they make more interesting decisions than a lot of people who've played and played and played and played and played because they’re the people who've played kind of like know what is possible, quote unquote. But when you are just jumping in, you don't know what you don't know.
Justin (Otakus & Geeks): What is it like playing this with, you know, just with an audience watching? And not only that it's being filmed and do you feel any pressure at times when you're doing this, but obviously it's just fun and also what is it like with, um, working with Matt and on this project as well?
Anjali Bhimani : Luckily I've had enough experience with film and television that the cameras being on doesn't make me nervous. I definitely have that nervousness and excitement except when you think everything's gonna go bad and when you think everything's gonna go good, I like to lean into the, I have, oh my God, I have no idea what's gonna happen. How cool is this <laugh> like, leaning into that? But it feels exactly the same as nervousness, right? That's always there anytime I play because the world is anything is possible. I don't find that there's a difference between doing it for an audience, especially because it's not a live audience. It's different playing for a live audience, that's for sure. But, doing it for an audience that we know is gonna be out there, it just means that we have to do exactly the thing that I love doing so much, which is commit to a great story, commit to telling a great story, commit to supporting your fellow actors in their story. Um, that, that's, I mean, that's, I love that, that's so much fun when you can see what someone else is trying to do and you can like, oh, I'm gonna make sure that my character supports that by, by screwing up this thing or something, you know, whatever it is. What it’s like to play with Matt? He cares so much about the community. He cares so much about the game in front of him. He cares so much about the players. Um, it's, it's, it's so clear how much care he puts into everything and time and energy and just everything that he does, um, that you can't help but rise to not only rise to his level but also just fall in love with the human that he is.
