Self-proclaimed multi-disciplinary idiot, and all-around chaos incarnate, Whitney Moore has worn many hats. Director, writer, actor, and so many titles in-between.

From making her own short films during the pandemic, to voice acting, having her very own burlesque show, and now nabbing a seat at Critical Role’s table for their fourth campaign, Moore is booked and busy. Gratefully so. As we discuss her career from its beginning to where she is today, there’s a sense of gratitude at being able to have so many spinning plates in the air.

She’s learned a lot about herself within that time, whether the experience was good or bad, she took something away from it, evolving into the razor-sharp performer we watch every Thursday. However, where Critical Role is concerned, it’s a whole new ball game. The fandom embracing Moore and her character (Tyranny, a bubble gum pink demon/Tiefling hybrid) enthusiastically from the jump. Once the character art was released, she affectionately recalls to us, a fan who was already making Tyranny’s costume 48 hours within the art dropping. The devil works hard, but Critters (Critical Role fans) work harder.

In between playing a demon, Moore has had several other projects vying for her attention this year. The Smashing Machine (which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival), had her starring alongside heavy weights Emily Blunt and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, most recently she wrapped on See You Next Tuesday, a film with friend and collaborator Steve Zaragoza, and she also moonlights in burlesque as both MC and performer. ‘Busy’ is an understatement. 

When we circle back to Critical Role, Moore, who was initially nervous about being asked at the gaming table, has now settled into herself, her character, and her stride. 

In conversation with 1883 Magazine, Whitney Moore discusses being asked to play at Critical Role’s table, what storytelling has taught her, the creation of Tyranny, pandemic film-making, and so much more.

I just want to start us off with, may the beam reach you.

[laughs] Oh, may the beam reach you and the light of the bright.

Thank you so much [laughs]. You’ve been so busy this year, with The Smashing Machine, Critical Role, and then, of course, you have your own short film coming out. You’re booked and busy. I suppose my first question is, how are you doing? How’re you holding up? 

Oh my gosh, I’m so happy, Dana. I’m so grateful. It’s so funny because The Smashing Machine and my short and Critical Role all fulfill very different parts of my soul and my creative body. I am busier than I have ever been, and I don’t want it to stop. It’s life giving.

I love it. I was at the Toronto International Film Festival and as you know, The Smashing Machine premiered here. The reception to it was felt. There were ripples among the press. Truly, there was so much excitement around it, and it was one of the most highly anticipated premieres at the festival. With good reason. 

Oh my gosh, that’s so awesome. It’s such a tender movie and the content is very triggering and upsetting and serious and dramatic. But it is at the end, such a hopeful and sweet and humanizing movie. I feel so happy that I got to do it. 

Can you talk about the whole experience from auditioning for The Smashing Machine to now seeing it in theaters? 

It’s funny. I’ll tell you what I told my friends, which is you’ll see this really heavy, dramatic movie about two deeply flawed people with their wounds colliding into each other. And it’s very there are very few spaces to breathe. And then about halfway through, I show up and I’m just like, “Hi.” [laughter] and then I leave. But it’s because of the nature of how we filmed, it was very improv heavy. There was a script, but it was up to us to sort of find it ourselves. And so, it’s really me being me in it. It’s so funny because my friends were like, “That’s just you, dude,” in the middle of this dramatic movie. I’m just like, “Hey, what’s up?” 

Did you feel more at home with improv as opposed to having a fixed script? Did you have more freedom to play? 

Man, both have so many different things going for them. I love a script because I love having the framework for what I’m doing. But I mean, improv is one of my first loves. I really appreciate the collaboration. It’s something that I love about the actual play space, too. You’re developing something together. And now as a writer in the last couple of years, I’ve really dug into that part of my identity. I’ve trusted myself a little bit more coming up with the right thing to say. 

I love that your career has spanned actual plays, film, television, voiceover work, not to even mention the stuff behind the camera. Like you said, writing Palm Swings to directing a music video for Dave Heatwave. What is it about storytelling that entices and motivates you so much? 

That’s a really good question. I sort of see the pandemic as a huge paradigm shift for myself, because previously I had only considered myself an actor. And the thing with being an actor is you’re always waiting on permission from other people to be an artist. And you’re waiting to see if somebody likes your picture and somebody likes your audition. And then you get to do the thing you want to do.

I just got so sick of that. I was like, “All right, why don’t I see what I can do myself?” And it turns out that having more control and really starting to lean into my own identity as an artist has made everything else better in my world. I love what writing has done for my ability as an improviser. I love what directing has done for my ability to see a story outside of my own role in something. I recommend to any creative person to try it all.

You have to step outside your comfort zone.

Absolutely.

Some of your first acting credits are Student of Virginity and Birdemic. Can you take me through those early projects and how they helped shape you into the creator and actress you are today? What would 2009 Whitney say to present day Whitney? 

Wow. She’d have a lot to say. She’d mostly give her a big hug, I think. Student of Virginity, was a college short film that I participated in. That was the trenches. I would say my career officially started with Birdemic. That was the first thing I was technically paid for. And it was also the thing that sort of broke out a little bit. What would I tell baby Whitney? Well, shooting that film was a pretty harrowing experience, even though it led to a lot of beauty and connection and really, really, really fun times. I would tell baby Whit that all of the shit that she’s going through is going to lead to resilience and going to lead to better boundaries and make you really fucking easy on set. 

With all those lessons learned from the trenches, what does your creative process look like now? Whether it’s writing, directing or acting? Where do you start? 

We can blame the ADHD here, but I’m really a like all or nothing type of type of person.

Relatable.

I’m really trying to get better at just finding a middle ground and having a more daily creative practice. But how my creative process usually works is I get an idea and then I don’t stop until it’s done and have to be reminded to get up and pee. [laughs] There is nothing in between. And then the rest of my time is playing video games or doing whatever. 

That kind of leads me into my next question. Where did you start with Tyranny? Was there always going to be a relationship between your and Sam’s (Reigel) character? What did those pre-game conversations between you and Brennan (Lee Mulligan) look like? 

First of all, I mentioned this before, but I didn’t know that demons weren’t a playable race. But also, I saw that Laura (Bailey) picked a fairy and I was like, “Oh, my God, there’s fairies and demons. I want to be a demon!” I thought it would be super metal. Brennan was like, “Okay, let’s make that.” And it’s a Tiefling build. I honestly, have no regrets because Brennan, he’s one of the best out there. And if he can’t make a demon a playable character, come on. But he killed it. We talked about how the lore fits in and how Tyranny fits into the mechanics of Aramán. I am supremely taken care of. And with Wic, I knew I wanted to do something with Sam, just because I think he’s so brilliant and so funny. And we have really great rapport with each other.

I also am somebody who deals a lot with heartache. And I think that Tyranny is someone who I’m funneling a lot of that into and not explicitly romantically, but just someone who yearns and fixates. I’m, you know, a sensitive artist, I’m very much a crybaby. I wanted to funnel elements of that into Tyranny. 

One of my favorite moments and examples of that sensitivity coming through, was during the second episode of the Overture. It’s the reveal of the angel in the Iron Maiden down in the basement. 

Oh my god, insane.

So insane. A detail that I love is that Tyranny does not take her eyes off of Wic for a second, like at all as they’re walking down there. The look on her face, it broke my heart because obviously she knew what was going on and he had no idea, he was like deer in the headlights. What was she feeling in that moment? What was going through your head? 

It’s so crazy to be reminded of moments like that, just because you’re so in it while it happens. But I think Tyranny at that point, she’s really in between a rock and a hard place because she has this responsibility that is literally tethering her to the plane that she wants to be on. She wants to be hanging out in Aramán. But then I think that she’s sort of softened to Wic and his beliefs, even though she knows that none of it is real. And to see someone just white knuckle their way into hope is so endearing. I think that she feels bad because she knows that he’s this frail boy.

And even though she thinks that he’s a dopey nerd, who doesn’t have a lot of self awareness, he is really pure in a lot of ways, and you can’t not be endeared to that. I felt so bad for her in that moment, because she was just like, “Fuck, man, I have to watch this person get their entire worldview destroyed.”

Tyranny keeps reiterating that she can’t be saved. And I’m really hoping that isn’t true. Now that she and Wic are basically on the run from both of their families, what is your hope for Tyranny as they embark on this new adventure together at the Soldiers table? Why do you think she feels so particularly protective of Wic?

She feels protective of Wic because she knows that he doesn’t want to hurt anybody. And I think she quite literally has a job to do with him. She’s tied to him in that way. But I think she also is emotionally tied, because now they are both fish out of water, and they really need each other. I think Wic needs Tyranny and Tyranny needs Wick just as much. My hope for her is that she learns to see who she is outside of the path that was set for her. Whether or not that is something that is able to be accomplished, I think the effort is going to be worthwhile.

I have my fingers crossed for her. Good luck to y’all on the road [laughter]. I saw a clip on Instagram of you and Steve Zaragoza on ‘Dynamic Banter.’ You said, “Hollywood is fucked, make your own art.” 

I say that but also hire me Hollywood.

What is a piece of art, a story, a film that affected you so deeply and changed your brain chemistry? And why, in your own words, is art especially needed now?

This is so off the top, simply because I just saw the musical adaptation when we were in New York. But this is going to sound so silly, but the movie Death Becomes Her really affected me as a child. It changed my wiring. I wanted to say something powerful and award winning and has a lot of emotional depth, but no, I saw the movie as a kid and I was like, “I want to make goofy shit.”

And I think that for me, I talk a lot about the sad girl within and all of that, but humor and comedy are the most important things to me. I think that that’s a container to experience every possible emotion because you have tragic comedies, you have slapstick, you have horror comedies. Comedy is a difficult genre to write and to execute. And so, if you can do that, you have provided the space to explore every other human emotion.

It goes without saying, but times right now, they’re hard. There’s hard stuff happening. I think that finding a way to tell a story that has emotional depth and can unlock parts of yourself that are lonely or sad or craving connection, while also being absurd, as absurd as the times that are happening around us, is a great goal to have.

I love that answer, Whitney. I was not expecting you to say Death Becomes Her. 

I’m so bad at answering off the top name five movies. But I’m a huge absurdity fan. I’m a huge fan of surreal, weird shit. And I feel like it forces you to look at yourself.

On Instagram, there’s a post from the premiere day of Campaign four. And it’s a carousel of polaroids that you posted. And then the last photo in the bunch is a horse sitting in a field with the caption, “This actually was my first rodeo.” What has been the most surprising thing about this whole journey so far? 

To be really emotionally candid, I was nervous because my friends at Critical Role, I’ve known them since it was not Critical Role. And I have seen what they’ve grown and how special it is to them and how special the community is. And I was honestly shocked when I was asked to be a part of it. Because I don’t have the same experience as a lot of the other players. I don’t know what I’m doing. But I also am like, “Wow, this is a huge responsibility.” And I really honor that.

I have felt so held and taken care of and supported not only by my friends who are on the show, but also the people behind the scenes and also the critters (Critical Role fans). There are things that I might get wrong sometimes. And there have been a couple times I’ve picked up a D10 thinking it was a D8. I was worried so much about doing a good job technically that I kind of forgot that once I sat down at the table, I was like, “Oh, I’m totally fine. This is a game with my friends.” And it’s all going to be okay. I’m really grateful for the critters for taking a chance on us as new kids too. 

The moment character art came out; there were cosplays within days. Critters don’t play.

Critters are on a different level. As a fan of comic books and visual arts, I’m someone who is always at Artist Alley buying art. I have seen more art of my character and of the rest of the cast characters that blow me out of the water. 

And shout out to Lauren (Walsh), too, for the character design because she worked with us so intently and she just absolutely knocked it out of the park with Tyranny.

She absolutely did. Moving forward, when you look back over your body of work, is there a project you’d like to revisit? 

That’s such a good question. Immediately I have an answer. My first dip into filmmaking was a month or two into the pandemic. I put together a little film festival called the “ABCs of Quarantine” and the idea was to make a film in 48 hours, quick and dirty. Then we’ll screen your film over zoom. I got the letter ‘S’, and I made a short called Seed. And it’s about a woman who collects semen in a jar to make a homunculus. I’m a big fan of like bodily fluids. You know, blood sprays, a vomit gag. I love it in film. [laughs] I wouldn’t say it’s good. It’s super rough around the edges but I really like the idea, and I think I’d like to flush it out into a feature sometime. 

That’s so cool. I’d love to see that fully made into a feature. I’ll keep a look out. I saw a clip of you on Dirty Laundry doing witchcraft with pubic hair. So, I can’t say that I’m the least bit surprised.

I did certainly do that. I am a girl who loves her rituals. Can’t speak to the effectiveness of that one, but I do love a good ritual.

And my last question. What brings you joy and what brings you happiness in this life? What do you hope for yourself in 2026? 

Oh, I love that question. The only thing that brings me joy is connection and self expression. I have so many emotions banging around at all times, I need the release of creativity. But I don’t know if I could be one of those people who lives on a mountain and just paints or creates and doesn’t have anybody see it like I want to be witnessed, and I want to witness others, and that’s the only thing that matters.

Interview Dana Reboe