- This page is about the actor. For the character from a one-shot campaign, see Laura Bailey (character).
Laura Dawn Bailey is a voice actor who plays the character Jester Lavorre on Critical Role. She played the character Vex'ahlia in the first campaign.
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 played the twins Vex and Vax, which they decided on after finding out they share the same birthday, May 28. While creating their character backgrounds, they spent 3 hours at a diner establishing their story.
Travis Willingham, who played Grog in the first campaign, is married to Laura in real life. 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.
Critical Role
Her character was known for winking at other characters, how much she cared for her ranger companion bear Trinket, and how good she was at bargaining.
She 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.
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.
Before her debut in Campain 2, Laura had played as Jester on 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.[2]
Originally Laura intended for Jester to be a Warlock with her Archfey patron being Artagan, but Travis was also interested in the class, so Jester ended up becoming a Cleric; Matthew Mercer told her 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.[3]
Laura's Player Characters
Main Storyline
- Vex'ahlia, half-elf ranger/rogue (The Campaign of Vox Machina)
- Jester Lavorre, tiefling cleric (Campaign 2)
One-Shots and Special Episodes
- 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 ("Shadow of War One-Shot: Part 1" (Sx22) and "Part 2" (Sx23))
- Laura Bailey (vampire) ("Thursday by Night: Part 1" (Sx24) and "Part 2" (Sx25))
- Greldamine Clypso, gnome mage ("Kobolds, Catacombs and Dragons (Oh My!)" (Sx29))
- 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))
Episodes DMed by Laura
Trivia
- On Talks Machina, the host Brian Wayne Foster likes to "#ThankMyGuests" with names that are either mispronounced or wordplay that sounds close to their names. Here are the names for Laura Bailey so far:
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- 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.
- Hours before the livestream of 9x08, Laura tweeted a D&D character sheet for "Baby Willingham", announcing her pregnancy.[4]
- On June 28 2018, 4 hours before the livestream of 10x13, Laura gave birth to her and Travis's son, Ronin. [5]
- 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's chosen drink for her Between the Sheets interview was a maple bourbon sour .
- Laura owns an impressive amount of dice and decides which to use by rolling them before each game. She is often teased by other cast members because of her supersticious way of treating dice.
- 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 was using her dice bag and she could not let it happen.
- 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), and The Gentleman (2020).
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
- ↑ File:Laura Bailey by Gage Skidmore.jpg on Wikimedia Commons
- ↑ Full Kinda Funny one-shot on YouTube.
- ↑ See "Talks Machina #141: 'With Great Power...'" (TMx141) from 0:19:29 through 0:21:03.
- ↑ Laura tweeted a photo to announce her pregnancy (source).
- ↑ Travis tweeted a photo to announce the name of their son, which Laura retweeted (source).
Art: