Laura Bailey

This article is about the actor. For the character from a one-shot campaign, see Laura Bailey (character). For the vampiric character from a different one-shot, see Laura Bailey (vampire).

Laura Bailey
Photograph of Laura Bailey for Variety, by Robyn Von Swank.
General Information
Full name	Laura Dawn Bailey
Pronouns	she/her
Born	May 28, 1981 (age 43) Mississippi
Nationality	American
Profession	Voice actress Voice director
Critical Role works	Critical Role Campaign 1: Vox Machina Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein Campaign 3: Bells Hells Downfall All Work No Play Between the Sheets Critical Role: Vox Machina - Kith & Kin Critical Role: Vox Machina - Kith & Kin (audiobook) "Kith & Kin Fireside Chat Q&A" (Sx63) EverythingIsContent Handbooker Helper Mini Primetime Pub Draw Travis Willingham's Yee-Haw Game Ranch The Legend of Vox Machina 4-Sided Dive Candela Obscura Chapter One Critical Role: Bells Hells - What Doesn't Break
Internet Presence
Website	https://www.laurabaileyvo.com/
Instagram	laurabaileyvo
Twitter	@LauraBaileyVO

Laura Bailey is a voice actress and a member of the main cast of Critical Role. She plays Imogen Temult in Campaign Three.

In previous campaigns, Laura played Vex'ahlia and Jester Lavorre. She was also the Dungeon Master for "Critical Role and the Club of Misfits" (Sx38).

Critical Role Productions

Pre-stream

At the beginning of the first campaign, Laura wanted to be a rogue, but Liam O'Brien beat her to it when asked what classes they wanted to be. Vex'ahlia later multi-classed as a rogue, and both Liam and Vax'ildan were proud of her for it. Laura and Liam decided to play twins after finding out they share the same birthday, May 28. While creating their character backgrounds, they spent about two hours at a diner establishing their story.

Very early on, Laura declared that she was in charge of the party's finances.

Travis Willingham, Laura's husband, played Grog in the first campaign. After Grog slapped Trinket's butt during one session, sending Trinket through a room full of traps, Laura "supposedly" made Travis sleep on the couch that night when they went home.

Main campaigns

Fan art of Laura's characters, by Aviv Or.

Laura made the first dice roll on stream, an intelligence roll of 18, to find out if dwarves keep the same business schedule as humans. She was also the first player to roll a 1, while attempting to convince the tavern crowd that she should replace Balgus in a fight against Trinket.

As Vexahlia, she was known for forgetting to cast Hunter's Mark before attacking in combat, prompting her fellow players to write "Hunter's Mark" on the chalkboard that she faced. Laura is also known for being an expert haggler, a skill she demonstrated numerous times as Vex'ahlia, but also as Jester when she faced Isharnai.

Before Jester's debut in Campain 2, Laura had played as her in two previous Dungeons & Dragons games in 2016. The first was a one-shot livestreamed by GameSpot, and the second was a collaboration with Kinda Funny.

During Jester's inception, Laura wanted her to be a purple tiefling, but Taliesin had the same idea, so Laura decided to chose blue instead. She also intended for Jester to be a Warlock, with Artagan as her Archfey patron, but Travis was also interested in the class. Jester ended up becoming a Cleric, and Matthew Mercer told Laura she could worship Artagan, but when the campaign started, his in-game treatment of The Traveler led her to believe he had gone a different direction.

Merchandise

Starting with "Reunions" (1x33), Laura was in charge of Critical Role merchandise and often announces new releases at the beginning of each episode. According to Laura, she "heavily influences" the designs of all merchandise as head of the Merchandise Creative Department, along with a team of three others who meet together weekly.

Player characters

See also: Player characters played by Laura Bailey

Main campaigns

• Vex'ahlia, half-elf ranger (Beast Master)/rogue (Assassin) (The Campaign of Vox Machina)
• Jester Lavorre, tiefling cleric (Trickery Domain) (Campaign Two: The Mighty Nein)
• Imogen Temult, human sorcerer (Aberrant Mind) (Campaign Three: Bells Hells)

Vex'ahlia

Jester Lavorre

Imogen Temult

One-shots and miniseries

• Juniper "Stinky Jules" Lanley, human gunslinger ("Deadlands One-Shot" (Sx11))
• Laura Bailey (character), human rogue ("Liam's Quest!" (Sx12) and "Liam's Quest: Full Circle" (Sx16))
• Devan Bluebutton, halfling sorcerer ("The Screw Job" (Sx15))
• Arburuk the Unbreakable, olog-hai fighter ("Shadow of War One-Shot: Part 1" (Sx22) and "Part 2" (Sx23))
• Laura Bailey (vampire), vampire ("Thursday by Night: Part 1" (Sx24) and "Part 2" (Sx25))
• Greldamine Clypso, gnome mage ("Kobolds, Catacombs and Dragons (Oh My!)" (Sx29))
• Portia Lorelei, human blood hunter ("Liam's One Shot: The Song of the Lorelei" (Sx36))
• Izzy, raccoon ("Crash Pandas: Too Trashed, Too Curious" (Sx37))
• The Midnight Maven, bear ("Honey Heist 3: Tova’s Honeys" (Sx39))
• Farriwen Breeze, air genasi monk ("The Adventures of the Darrington Brigade" (Sx49))
• Mancubus the Mancubus, mancubus ("Doom Eternal One-Shot" (Sx52))
• Remuil Volgrave, druid ("Diablo One Shot" (Sx54))
• Grelnok Nightbringer, orsimer dragonknight (The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood)
• Seraphine Glass, captain ("The Nautilus Ark: A Johnson Corp Odyssey" (Sx60))
• Kill-Pro Z21V.2 ("Tiny Tina's Wonderlands One-Shot" (Sx66))
• Nugget, blink dog ("A Familiar Problem: Sprinkle's Incredible Journey" (Sx68))
• Alex Peters (WyreWizzard) ("Generation Nord" (Sx72))
• Arlo Black (Candela Obscura, Chapter One)
• Bramble ("Choose Their Adventure...Again!" (Sx81))
• Sweetpea Betabean ("Critical Role plays Daggerheart" (Sx83), "The Menagerie Returns!" (Sx84), "Ménagerie a Trois" (Sx85))
• Evelyn White ("Candela Obscura Live - The Circle of the Silver Screen" (CO5x01))
• Emhira ("Downfall: Part One" (3x99) - "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101))

Laura Bailey

Devan Bluebutton

Vampire Laura Bailey

Portia Lorelei

Izzy

The Midnight Maven

Farriwen Breeze

Grelnok Nightbringer

Capt. Seraphine Glass

Arlo Black

Bramble

Sweetpea

Emhira

Games played as game master

• "Critical Role and the Club of Misfits" (Sx38)

Other works

Laura began working in anime dubbing while she was still in college, appearing as several characters in Dragon Ball Z. She later went on to voice well known characters such as Lust in Fullmetal Alchemist, Maka Albarn in Soul Eater, Chun-Li in Street Fighter, Pyrrha Alexandra in Soul Calibur 5, and Serana in Skyrim.

In 2020, Laura won the BAFTA Award for Best Performer in a Leading Role, as well as Best Performance at the Game Awards, for her performance as Abby Anderson in The Last of Us Part II. She has also appeared as Mary Jane in Marvel's Spider-Man and its sequel and Jaina Proudmoore in World of Warcraft.

Personal life

Laura Bailey at WonderCon 2017, by Gage Skidmore.

Laura and Travis Willingham met through commercials and television during their college years. They briefly dated, then reconnected a few years later when Laura moved to Los Angeles. They got married in 2011.

In "Critical Role: Grog's One-Shot" (Sx26) that aired on 30 November 2017, Travis featured a green man (Fjord) and a blue lady (Jester) with a baby, alluding to Ronin. Hours before the livestream of "The Gates of Zadash" (2x08), Laura tweeted a D&D character sheet for "Baby Willingham", announcing her pregnancy. On June 28 2018, 4 hours before the livestream of "Divergent Paths" (2x25), Laura gave birth to her and Travis's son, Ronin.

In some ways, Laura is superstitious. Before each game, she chooses the prettiest dice and looks how well they roll. If a die rolls poorly, Laura moves it to the dice jail for a day. While the verified dice are faced upward with the number twenty on the top to "charge up" the crits. Also, according to Laura, she and Travis once lived with ghosts. As they moved, Travis welcomed the ghosts into their new house, puzzling Laura.

According to Ashley Johnson and Taliesin Jaffe, Laura possess "special tricks" and impregnable confidence which makes her an expert at haggling.

Trivia

• Laura is the "thumbnail guru" in charge of the photos that currently act as YouTube thumbnails for the main campaign episodes.
• For both Campaigns 1 and 2, Laura Bailey has had to forego her initial Class choices for another party member. For Campaign 1 she wanted Vex'ahlia to be a Rogue but Liam O'Brien beat her to the punch so she switched to a Ranger, later multiclassing into a Rogue. For Campaign 2 she wanted Jester to be a Warlock but let Travis Willingham take the Class at his request before settling on making her character a Cleric.
• Laura is the only left-handed member of the cast, and many of her videogame characters are as well. It is unknown if her Exandrian characters are also left-handed.
• Laura's chosen drink for her Between the Sheets interview was a maple bourbon sour .
• Laura was attending the Game Awards during the airing of "Unwanted Reunions" (2x88), where she was nominated for Best Performance, but suddenly showed up to the game before her category had even been announced at the ceremony. She arrived in full gala attire, stating that a fan had tweeted at her that Sam Riegel was using her dice bag and she could not let it happen.
• In "Critical Role Escapes the Evil Sorcerer's Lair" Laura was called "Grabby McGrabgrab" due to her tendency to snatch clues out of the hands of her partners.
• In her Instagram stories, Marisha Ray explained that Laura was originally going to play in Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, but when she was no longer available Marisha took her place and developed Patia Por'co using Laura's first ideas. Coincidentally, in the first episode of the miniseries, Marisha had a lapse and accidentally called her character "Portia", which is the name of a character that Laura played.
• According to Laura, all three of her main characters have seen a bug carrying a piece of bread. She told a story about it as Jester Lavorre, and briefly repeated it as Imogen Temult, so when asked about it by a fan, she confirmed that Vex'ahlia had seen the bug as well when she was younger, and even played the ranger telling the story for a few seconds.
• Every Halloween, the cast of Critical Role dresses up in costume for one episode. Laura has dressed up as Hannah from Rat Queens (2015), Delilah Briarwood (2016), Chell from Portal (2017), Kait Diaz (2019), The Gentleman (2020), Robbie Daymond (2021), Rogue (2022), and Merry (2023).
• According to Matthew Mercer, in The Legend of Vox Machina Laura and Marisha were the ones who recorded most of Grog Strongjaw's burps, as they were the cast members who demonstrated the most ability to do so.
• When asked which one of her Critical Role characters is her favorite, she replied that it was Jester Lavorre because there's a beauty in not having to have a filter. Laura constantly has to filter herself in real life so it's nice to have that moment when she doesn't have to.
• On Talks Machina, the host Brian Wayne Foster liked to "#ThankMyGuests" with names that were either mispronounced or wordplay that sounded close to the original. Here are the names for Laura Bailey:

Lauren Bailey Lauren Billy Layra Bundie Lauren Bundy Gloria Bay Leaf

Fedora Maybe Floral Gravy Lore of Gravy Aura Melee Laura Croft: Broom Raider

Recorded Daily Lord Have Bail Money Ghostin' Lately Loving Pastries

Traveler Save Me Loving The Baby Mom And Baby Low Heals Ragey

External links

• Critical Role's Laura Bailey: Twinning the game (October 15, 2015)
• Critical Role's Laura Bailey: Where you've heard her before (February 2, 2016)
• Between the Sheets: Laura Bailey (October 3, 2018)
• IMDb profile

References

Art: