- This page is about the actor. For the character from the "Liam's Quest" one-shots, see Liam O'Brien (character). For the character from the "Thursday by Night" one-shots, see Liam O'Brien (vampire).
Liam O'Brien is a voice actor, voice director, and a member of the main cast of Critical Role. He plays Orym in Campaign Three.
In previous campaigns, he played Vax'ildan and Caleb Widogast. He has also been the Dungeon Master for several special episodes.
Critical Role Productions
Pre-Stream
Before Critical Role began, Liam and his close friend Sam created a podcast called allworknoplay, with the intention to get more fun into their busy schedules. For Liam's birthday they planned to play Dungeons & Dragons with some friends and shared their experience on the podcast. Towards the end of All Work No Play's second episode, the two of them talked about getting ready for the upcoming "one-time" D&D game. Liam asked Matthew Mercer to run the game, because Matthew kept telling him about the D&D game he was running and often invited Liam to join. Liam enjoyed the game so much that he messaged the other players shortly after, asking if they would like to start a continuing game. They have been playing ever since.
Liam and Laura Bailey decided to play twins in Campaign One because they share their birthday, May 28th.[2] Before the game, the two of them spent three hours at a diner creating their character backgrounds.[citation needed]
Before they started streaming, Liam recorded snippets of their gameplay. One can be heard in the second episode of All Work No Play and another one is available on his yotube channel.
Liam O'Brien on the set of CelebriD&D, cropped from a larger image.[art 2]
Main Campaigns
While playing as Vax'ildan in Campaign One, Liam came up with a backup character, a "halfling druid/monk from the Air Ashari, sent by Keyleth’s father, to be of aid to her in her grief".[3] This initial character idea eventually morphed into Orym, his player character in Exandria Unlimited and Campaign Three.
Liam took part in the D&D Beyond Presidential Campaign, a recurring sponsorship segment created by Sam Riegel.
Player Characters
See also: Player characters played by Liam O'Brien
Main Campaigns
- Vax'ildan, half-elf rogue/paladin/druid (Campaign One: Vox Machina)
- Caleb Widogast, human wizard (Campaign Two: The Mighty Nein)
- Orym, a halfling fighter (Campaign Three)
One-shots and miniseries
- Kurt, human barbarian ("Critical Trolls for Extra Life" (Sx02))
- Reverend Forrest Alton, human ("Deadlands One-Shot" (Sx11))
- Jayne Merriweather, human cleric ("Bar Room Blitz" (Sx21))
- Liam O'Brien (vampire), vampire ("Thursday by Night: Part 1" (Sx24) and "Part 2" (Sx25))
- Cookie, a bear ("Trinket's Honey Heist" (Sx27))
- Quazirat Tolluz, draenei warrior ("Kobolds, Catacombs and Dragons (Oh My!)" (Sx29))
- Ringo, raccoon ("Crash Pandas: Too Trashed, Too Curious" (Sx37))
- Ally, human druid ("Critical Role and the Club of Misfits" (Sx38))
- Lieve'tel Toluse, elf cleric ("The Search For Grog" (Sx42), "The Search For Bob" (Sx45))
- Tomeytine, honesty earth pony ("Tails of Equestria One-Shot" (Sx44))
- Septimus Goodfellow, celebrity spiritualist ("Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace" (Sx46))
- Derrig, half-elf fighter ("Dalen's Closet" (Sx47))
- Buddy, ogre fighter ("The Adventures of the Darrington Brigade" (Sx49))
- Mordred, the Gaunt, crusader ("Diablo One Shot" (Sx54))
- Orym, halfling fighter (Exandria Unlimited)
- Forrest Coreman, chief of engineering ("The Nautilus Ark: A Johnson Corp Odyssey" (Sx60))
Games Played as Dungeon Master
- "Critical Role EXTRA – Liam's Quest!" (Sx12)
- "Critical Role Extra – The Return of Liam!" (Sx15)
- "Liam's Quest: Full Circle" (Sx16)
- "Liam's One Shot: 'Song of the Lorelei'" (Sx36)
- "The Night Before Critmas" (Sx41)
- "The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood - Part III: The Golden Goose" (Sx62)
Other Works
→ See also: Liam's IMDb profile
Liam began his career in theater before moving on to voice acting in the early 2000s. He also branched out to voice directing, and has worked on several productions, like The Last of Us and Resident Evil 6. A lot of his work revolves around japanese anime dubbing, be it as a voice actor, voice director, or automated dialog replacement writer. One of his most well-known speaking roles is the character Gaara from Naruto.
Personal Life
Liam is married to fellow voice actress Amy Kincaid. They have two children together, and own a dog, Sprigg, who was named after the guest character of the same name.
Liam has stated that D&D has helped him get through a rough patch in his life after he developed hyperacusis.[4]
Trivia
Photograph of Liam O'Brien, by Heirlume Photography.[art 17]
- He shares his middle name, Christopher, with Matt Mercer.
- Liam ties Travis for most player characters at 18. He additionally played a non-DM non-player character Cinna Brightbow.
- His most played class is Fighter, with four characters.
- More of Liam O'Brien's player characters have died than any other cast member on Critical Role.
- Six of the characters Liam has played across one-shots and the main campaigns have died. Five of them were beyond resurrection or within a game without resurrection rules at their final death.
- Liam is the only member of the cast who has played two characters of the same family: Derrig and his son-in-law, Orym.
- Critical Role is Liam's first "pure" game of Dungeons & Dragons. Before this, he was a Dungeon Master in his sophomore year of high school as well as a player, which, as he states, "is totally cheating."[5] He also ran a Rift game as well as a Cyberpunk game. After Critical Role became such a large part of Liam's life, he began running several D&D games for his children.[citation needed]
- When asked who he'd pick if he could switch to any player character in Campaign One, Liam chose Scanlan.[6]
- Liam's chosen drink on his Between the Sheets interview was mulled wine.
- Liam currently holds second place for attendance out of the main cast members for the main campaigns, just two episode appearances behind Marisha Ray. However, if one-shots are counted, he takes first place.
- Liam's involvement in choosing fan art for the slideshows and official art books has earned him the title of "Art Dad" from the community.
- Every Halloween, the cast of Critical Role dresses up in costume for one episode. Liam has dressed up as the Dread Pirate Roberts (2015), Tyriok Gadsworth (2016), the Sole Survivor from Fallout 4 (2017), Kylo Ren (2018), Gaara (2019), Astrid (2020), and Ashley Johnson (2021).
- 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 Liam O'Brien so far:
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External Links
- Critical Role's Liam O'Brien talks his love of Dungeons & Dragons (September 10, 2015)
- Critical Role's Liam O'Brien: Where you've heard him before (January 27, 2016)
- Liam's Reddit AMA (September 6, 2016)
- Between the Sheets: Liam O'Brien (October 10, 2018)
- IMDb profile
References
- ↑
(@VoiceOfOBrien) on Twitter: "What's sexier than wizards NOTHING" (2019-09-05).
- ↑ From an excerpt of episode 2 of the podcast allworknoplay at 0:42:16.
- ↑ Liam O'Brien (@VoiceOfOBrien) on Twitter: "The idea was a Halfling Druid/Monk from the Air Ashari, sent by Keyleth’s father, to be of aid to her in her grief. He himself was going to be a widower(?) to another Ashari fella named Riegel. That was the back up plan." (2017-11-17).
- ↑ See "K'Varn Revealed" (1x10) at 4:06:25. (Q&A session)
- ↑ See "Attack on the Duergar Warcamp" (1x04) at 3:13:25.
- ↑ See "Attack on the Duergar Warcamp" (1x04) at 3:56:32.
Art:
- ↑ Photograph of Liam O'Brien for Variety, by Robyn Von Swank (source). This file is a copyrighted work. Its use in this article is asserted to qualify as fair use of the material under United States copyright law.
- ↑ Casey, Dan. GAME OF THRONES' John Bradley Plays D&D with Nerdist and Critical Role on Nerdist.com Published August 3, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ↑ Official portrait by Kit Buss
- ↑ Official portrait by Ari
- ↑ Official portrait by Hannah Friederichs
- ↑ Official portrait by Kendra Wells
- ↑ Official portrait by Kendra Wells
- ↑ Official portrait by Joana Carvalho
- ↑ Official portrait by Hugo Cardenas
- ↑ Official portrait by Joana Carvalho
- ↑ Official portrait by Kit Buss
- ↑ Official portrait by Tori
- ↑ Official portrait by Kit Buss
- ↑ Official portrait by Aviv Or
- ↑ Official portrait by Hannah Friederichs
- ↑ Official portrait by @tshortik
- ↑ Photograph of Liam O'Brien, by Heirlume Photography (source). This file is a copyrighted work. Its use in this article is asserted to qualify as fair use of the material under United States copyright law.
