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Anjali Bhimani has done it all, quite frankly. From acting on Law and Order to being the voice of Symmetra in Overwatch, she’s everywhere. Whether you’re a fan of Ms Marvel, Apex Legends, or Critical Role, you’ve heard her voice as part of those franchises. As a long-time fan of her work, this was a great chance to sit down with her and talk not just about her podcast but about what makes video games so great.
As Anjali Bhimani so eloquently puts it in this interview, it’s more than just the actors. That’s why on her podcast, Character Select, she wants to have a wide range of guests - not just famous actors/voice actors. So many people contribute to a quality video game, and she aims to have them on the show to highlight a role or a performance that was special to them.
It was great to chat with her and learn more about her impressive career. We spoke about how Dungeons & Dragons wasn’t cool when we were kids, the growth and emergence of Real Play tabletop shows like Dimension 20, and so much more.
Anjali Bhimani on new podcast “Character Select”, Dungeons & Dragons, and more
Q. First, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us! For those who may not be familiar, could you please introduce yourself to our audience?
Anjali Bhimani: Sure. My name is Anjali Bhimani. I am an actress, author, producer, mother of a dog, and wife to a rock star. I have many titles. If you know me from the gaming world, you probably know me as Symmetra from Overwatch or Rampart from Apex Legends. In the Tabletop world, I do a lot of work with Dimension 20 and Critical Role. Also, the recently concluded first season of DesiQuest, which I'm very proud of.
On television, I have been in Ms Marvel and Dead to Me and a bunch of other things. Animation, I've done a lot of voices. I wrote a book, I produce things. I keep busy and I just launched a podcast with my friend Julia Bianco called Character Select. That just came out a couple of weeks ago.
Q. You've recently launched a new podcast: Character Select - it debuted on March 25 on Spotify/Apple Podcasts alongside Julia Bianco. What led to the decision to focus on the gaming industry?
Anjali Bhimani: Well, actually, surprisingly enough, it's not specifically about voice acting and that's an important distinction. The reason that this happened is because Julia and I were already friends from the industry and from writing our books at the same time. We ended up on the same BAFTA long list committee for the best supporting performance in games.
So we were there to take the long list and make it a shorter list of nominees. And there was this extraordinary conversation among all of the people who were on that Zoom that happened that was so reverent and so just deep-diving into the intricacies of what made each of these performances that were on the long list special.
And so much of it actually had to do with things that were different than the actors. The actors were very important because that's the voice or sometimes the visual of the game and the character.
But everybody's vantage point, whether it was a sound designer, performance director, narrative director, or composer, everybody had a different vantage point as to what made that performance extraordinary, what technical aspects contributed to or maybe were an obstacle to that performance coming through as, as effectively as it could have.
And we were both so taken aback in a beautiful way by how much love was put into these conversations about other people's performances and other people's or other companies' creations.
Everybody on that Zoom just cared so much about what had been put into this creation by the developers, by everybody from start to finish. And so we decided that that was the kind of conversation we wanted to have on the podcast.
We wanted to bring in people from all different lanes in gaming jobs that maybe others didn't even know existed because so many people look at the character or listen to the character and think oh, the performance is all about the actor, but it's so not.
And I can say this with 100% certainty as an actor who plays in games, who acts in games because we show up after people have been working on this for years; they've been working on something.
They weren't just waiting for us to show up. They've been creating this beautiful art and these stories and these, these worlds, and the visuals of these worlds contribute to what makes this character special. So the concept of the show is we bring on people from all aspects of gaming and talk to them, of course about their journey and their path in their own career.
But then, also having them choose one of their favorite performances or an iconic performance from video games and break it down with us and tell us why they believe it's so special. And what about it is so special? So it is both a chance to dive into all the different aspects of game creation and also a chance.
It's a love letter to all of the people who are creating these games because hearing it from your peers who understand the level of love and the level of commitment that goes into that and hearing them talk about all of those specific things.
There's something very heartwarming about that. Our very first episode was with Matt Mercer. He was our guest and he talked about David Hayter’s performance as Solid Snake and all of the things that he believed that made that character and that performance very special.
And what was an unexpected, incredible joy for us was hearing from David because he's also a friend and being like, I can't thank you so much for having this conversation with someone like Matt who is obviously a legend himself. And it means so much to know that he saw that in my performance.
And so there's this, there's this joy within the industry and this joy of introducing people to things that happen in the industry. And both of those are combined on the show.
Jason: I really loved the Matthew Mercer episode because truthfully, I love the Metal Gear Solid series, but I’m so bad at the stealth aspect. So I just, I love David Hayter’s performance, the various character interactions. I love the world they built, but I’m really bad at playing it.
Anjali Bhimani: Here's the thing: I sucked at modern-day video games. I played a lot when I was a kid and then I stopped when first-person shooters essentially began to take over. That was just not a level of coordination that I had.
So I kind of stopped, went into what I call the dark days of gaming, came back when Overwatch came out and all of a sudden it was a million times more complicated. So I have always been a story lore character-driven player.
And I think what's so lovely about what's going on in games now is that there are so many deep and unique and complex characters and stories being written so much so that even if you can't or don't get into the gameplay aspect of it, you can play on super easy mode or you can, you know, worst case scenario - I don't think this isn't great for the companies because we want you to buy the games.
But, getting to watch those cutscenes and have that effect or with, with some of the companies, most of the companies now are doing things in multiple media. So they might have the game out.
But then they'll also have animatic of their characters or about some of the lore, or they'll have comic books that go with it or they'll have fiction. So there are all sorts of ways to get into it. And, um, for me personally, that is vital because I just don't have the coordination and the speed and the sense of space not to die within the first 30 seconds of a match in Overwatch.
Q. Your podcast has such an interesting take on the world of voice and gaming. What sort of research goes into an episode of Character Select?
Anjali Bhimani: Well, first of all, we have a wonderful research assistant, Amanda who does a little bit of digging for us. A lot of our guests so far, are people that we know or know of in the industry and have wanted to bring on, have worked with before.
So part of the research is just what we know about them already and all of their massive incredible accomplishments like Jennifer and like Matt, and really like now that I'm thinking about it, all of the recorded episodes that we have so far, we have, we have worked with everybody who's on there has worked with pretty much everyone in the gaming industry ever.
So she knows way more than I do about people's backgrounds and such and about all of the different projects that people have worked on.
But I think the predominant part of the research that we've done - that at least for me has been interesting is that learning about the characters from a game I either didn't play or never heard of or just knew nothing about and finding out not just about the character itself, but what went into their creation?
Was there an inspiration for the company or for the writers that made that happen? Were there significant things about that performance that changed the course of gaming? Those pieces of research are really, really interesting to us and you know, we mentioned all of that before we go into the breakdown of the character.
But then really, the research is just from that point on, after we talked about that, from that point on, it's really just talking with our guest and them telling us what they believe is so special and us kind of bouncing that back and forth.
Jason Parker: I see! I grew up in the '80s, so I grew up with Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. I’ve mostly just been playing role-playing games.
Anjali Bhimani: For me, it was the Forgotten Realms games. So Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Shadows of Ahm.
Jason Parker: Goodness. I remember when Neverwinter Nights 2 first came out, and a group of my friends and I got together to play online for what felt like… two or three days. I started playing D&D in the 90s, so I fell in love with the game immediately.
Anjali Bhimani: I started playing D&D in 1982.
Jason Parker: Oh wow. I started around… 1992? I remember going to a friend’s house and his dad had the Red Box (first edition). We booted up a little Apple II-e, made our character sheets, and the rest was history.
Anjali Bhimani: Yeah, you and I sound like we had the same childhood. Absolutely. Like, we started with our Apple II, then the Apple II-e. Before that was the Atari.
But those games, even looking back, you know, I was listening to Jennifer Hale in Baldur's Gate and I didn't know it. These were things that as a player, as a consumer, I did not know that they were and you would think that this sounds so myopic was kind of just, just kind of foolish not to realize. But I just didn't clock the human contribution that was behind these games.
And that to me is really, really vital to be able to highlight how much is going into that battle map or into the speed at which certain effects are happening or how much care is being put into all of those things really does affect how we experience a game. Um, and what's so fun about all of that is that full circle.
Now, Jennifer Hale is one of our dearest friends. She's on episode two of character, and being able to hear about her journey and, and the things that have affected her through the entire experience because she's been around doing this since before people clocked that human beings were doing this. So she's definitely seen the changes happen firsthand.
Q. With only a few episodes released, the sky is honestly the limit when it comes to potential guests. If you could have anyone on to pick their brain, who would it be?
Anjali Bhimani: I would really love to get Amy Hennig if we could. That would be truly fantastic. I would love to get Troy. Troy is a friend, and I have met Neil Druckmann through him and Ashley, and whatnot.
I would love to get Neil Druckmann on to talk a little bit about The Last of Us, and the experience of that whole thing. Who else that we don’t know? I mean, we just have such baller friends. It’s hard, it’s so fun.
Ashley, Laura Bailey, sure, again, dear friends. Honestly, that’s the thing, I would love to find out which people I don’t know that I should know about. And so we are partly counting on the momentum of the show and word of mouth of the show to get people suggesting others to come on who are not just well-known voice actors or actors.
I’m so grateful that our friend Austin Wintory came on because he’s had such a huge hand in so many games because of the composing that he’s done. And Stray Gods, the game we just finished last year, was an entirely musical video game.
A musical roleplaying game and none of those characters, none of our performances would have been what they were without Austin’s incredible music, and we were just so grateful to have him on.
I’d like to highlight more new development companies as well. I’d love to talk to the team from Venba (Visai Games) because that game is very dear to my heart for many reasons. I love what they created with it. I love that style of game. So, talking to them, I do have a friend who’s worked with their team that we’re bringing on later in the season. I don’t know, who do you want to see?
Jason Parker: Oh, I’d love to see Ben Starr on there!
Anjali Bhimani: Oh, well, Ben’s on our list. We do have a long list of actors whom we definitely want to bring on the show as we go. We just want to make sure that there is an equal number of people who are not actors.
One of the most important things for us about this show is to share the other parts of game development that go into creating a character - the animators, the artists, the sound designers, and the performance directors.
We have a great episode with Tom Keegan. He talks about pulling out the most beautiful performances from people and how you do that as a performance director in a game which is different than on a film set or a TV set. Because it is a different art. They’re related and a lot of the skills carry over from one to the other, but there are just different parameters that you have to work with.
Jason: I’m also always curious to hear from composers like Yasunori Mitsuda, or anyone who’s worked on a big RPG - a lot of the setting, and emotion to games like that is thanks to the musical score. It does a lot of lifting. So Mitsuda-san is one that always stands out to me - and Hiroki Kikuta, who composed the Mana Series.
Q. You're very well versed in tabletop gaming as well - personally, my favorite character I've seen you play was during The Ravening War, for Dimension 20. What drew you to tabletop gaming? Was it Exandria Unlimited or Dimension 20, and with whatever little downtime I imagine you have, do you have a regular group to play with?
Anjali Bhimani: Home games? No, not really. I tried to organize one. We lasted like maybe three sessions. Everybody's busy. It's not just me, it's everybody, right? And, in general, my hectic schedule, you know, I say this a lot, that I don't have a lot of free time. So, the way I see my friends is by making sure we work together. I'm very lucky that now the actual play series has become such a prevalent thing.
My initial introduction to tabletop was when my brother got me the red box basic D&D set when I was eight years old and I just fell in love with it. And I, you know, I played through the solo adventure and then I needed more. So I completely absconded with his second edition books and devoured all of them and started playing with friends at school.
I was doing all my homework, but I was also writing stories and, and reading mythology and all sorts of things that I wanted to do. And so, that was a wonderful place. It was a wonderful repository for that creativity and for a chance to work with other people collaboratively. And unfortunately, when I went to college, I kind of stopped playing because finding people to play with was hard.
And as you know, from when you started playing, it was a little bit less popular back then, just a little bit less, just a little bit harder to find people who were willing to admit that they played D&D. So that was also part of the dark days of gaming as I stopped playing that.
And then in 2016, when I met Matt and Marisha because of Overwatch, because we were at an event for it, we started talking about D&D, and I mentioned how much I missed playing and whatnot.
And then Marisha hit me up a little while later and said, "Hey, they're doing this game, they're doing this show at Geek and Sundry called We're Alive Frontier. My friend Ivan Van Norman is the GM. I think you'd be great at it. Would you be interested in checking it out?"
And I was like, within 30 seconds of our session zero, I was back and like, why did I ever stop? Why did I ever like, what on, what world did I think that quote unquote, being more serious and focusing on serious things was necessarily better than having this.
It is some of the most satisfying performing and acting that I've gotten to do. And I should differentiate between performing and acting because I will say it's some of the most satisfying acting that I have gotten to do because it isn't for the cameras when you're really like, you're aware of them.
But I feel like there's an awareness that there are people watching, but the only thing that changes about, at least for me, about what I'm doing is just making sure that they can see what I'm doing or hear about what I'm doing.
Everything else is I am deeply immersed in whatever is going on and I'm going to play this game the same way I would play it at home with a level of commitment that makes it fun for me.
So that was it like that the floodgates opened and boom thing after thing, I just like, I just love doing it and coming up this week. I don't know when this is going to air, but coming this Saturday, y'all see me DM for the first time.
Oh yeah, I got to be the DM for the first Lego D&D collaboration. So, we filmed an actual play in Denmark, which is the home of the Lego Brick. And there is a specific Lego set that they've just released that was designed by a fan for the Lego Ideas competition every year. The fan designer, Lucas Bolt, is at the table with us.
One of the Lego creators, Jordan David Scott is at the table with us, along with Luis Carazo and Ginny Di, and um yeah, hopefully everyone is happy with what I did. I had a ridiculous amount of fun doing it. I did not expect DMing to be that fun.
In fact, I was, once it happened, I was like, oh no, I love this. What am I going to do? Oh, no. Now I have to do more things and I'm so busy but I really want to do it. So we're going to do it.
Q. Since the focus of your podcast is on the power of these character's voices, let me ask you: If you had to talk about a particular character and their voice, who would you focus on? Who stands out the most to you?
Anjali Bhimani: Oh, it's such a hard one. I have so many. I mean, I really have to pick and it's probably a three-way tie between Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, and Ashley Johnson. All three of them for their work in The Last of Us because each one of them contributed something that for me completely changed how games were made.
It changed how games were viewed, it changed how those cut scenes are perceived, like the level of pathos and the level of care that you have for these characters.
And then especially Laura for playing a character that is despised. And what happens when, you know, you have to play that character and she did it so extraordinarily well. I'm very sad that she had to go through after, you know, people on the internet just being ridiculous.
But being able to create such incredibly deep and full characters in a setting like that is, it's just all three of them to me are just virtuosos.
Anjali Bhimani can be found in many places on the internet, such as on Instagram, TikTok, and X She also has the Character Select podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
