A ragtag group of nobodies and losers working in Dave’s Video World are pulled into the bombastic world of action movies when they are sucked into a magical videotape inDimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Up. As the employees of Dave’s Video World and the strip mall are thrust into different roles in this world they must adapt to their surroundings and try to find one another. With their only focus being survival and getting home, they’ll soon find that a larger plot is afoot that puts everything they love at stake and threatens the world of the greatest action movie to ever exist.
When creating the world ofNever Stop Blowing Up,Game Master Brennan Lee Mulligan, was inspired by Isabella Roland’s love of the action genre. The cast includes Ally Beardsley, one of the regularDimension 20cast members, Rolland, Ify Nwadiwe, Rekha Shankar, and Alex Song-Xia returning to the dome, andDimension 20newcomer, but Dropout regular Jacob Wysocki. Each player created two characters, their Dave’s Video World character and the action movie counterpart, taking inspiration from iconic action franchises and characters includingDie Hard,Marvel,The Fast & The Furious, and more.
15 Best Dimension 20 Seasons, Ranked
The best seasons of the actual play series Dimension 20 hop between genres and settings, giving the changing cast of comedy stars a great showcase.
Screen Rantinterviewed Rekha Shankar aboutDimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Up. She explained what motivates the big swings she takes as in character and how she isn’t trying to tortureBrennan Lee Mulligan with these choices. Shankar also shared the inspiration behind herNever Stop Blowing Upcharacters and what spurred her to have G13 “hacking” Usha.
Rekha Shankar Explains Why She Wanted To Play The “Oldest Lady In The World” In Never Stop Blowing Up
I think this is the craziest season ofDimension 20, I don’t know how you guys did this. It started, I was like, “Oh, this is rad.” And then as it was going, I was like, “What is happening?”
Rekha Shankar: I think that’s a really good endorsement of the season, what is happening is a great tagline.
Can you talk to me about creating Usha and G13, and kind of the dichotomy between these characters?
Rekha Shankar: Yeah, for Usha, when Brennan asked us, who do we want to have be our Dave’s Video World character, I just thought characters I like to play, characters I know are in my wheelhouse. I really love elderly people, and I had just played Laddoo Auntie on DesiQuest, and so I played a particular type of older lady there. So I wanted to kind of contrast it with a different type of older lady I wanted to play, which is sort of screw loose, kind of wackadoo old lady, “Oldest lady in the world.” Is what I said to him.
And when coming up with our counterparts, our VHS world characters, I kind of simply just said, “What is the opposite of that?” A big trope in action movies is the guy in the hacker van. I think of National Treasure, I think his name’s Riley, he’s the guy with the rectangular glasses in the van doing all the stuff for Nicolas Cage off-screen with a sort of improbable, “We’re in.”
Kind of maneuvers that are very funny, and very necessary for those types of movies, where you can kind of make huge logic leaps by just someone being good at “computers”. I thought that would be a really funny counterpart to this, the oldest woman in the world.
It was so great, especially when Usha first gets put into this world and just completely wrecks every computer she touches.
Rekha Shankar: Well, it’s hard to know, I ran into this when I was playing of Mice and Murder, when a character you play is smarter than you at the thing. So I’m not a computer genius, I’m not a hacker, but I’m playing a hacker. It was interesting because top of my intelligence, I can say some computery things, but I’m like, “Top of Usha’s intelligence, this woman doesn’t even plug in the phone.”
I might’ve gone too far in the opposite direction, but I was really trying to play it like, “How would the oldest woman in the world play being stuck in a FBI surveillance van?” I don’t think she would have a single clue what anything is. If that’s the case, your improv brain goes, “Okay, I don’t know anything, what do I know?” And it’s like, “Well, items go into slots in computers, like analog, we’re doing patching, so maybe she tries to stick the disk in a random slot and then it gets messed up.”
Rekha Shankar Reveals That “How Cool Would It Be If It Worked?” Motivates Her Big Character Swings
It was so perfect. I love the decision that you made later in the game to have G13 sort of taking over, was that something you had been thinking about or was that in the moment when you realized how advanced at technology you had gotten through the mechanics?
Rekha Shankar: I think it was a in the moment decision. I realized how many D20s I had, how many skills I had blown up, and it didn’t quite make sense. It was that same thing of like, “Okay, Rekha’s computer skills are here. G13’s are way, way up there, and Usha’s are way down here.” So there’s a bit of fear as Rekha having that level of tech skill. But then there’s also the thing of I don’t know how to play this character having that level of tech skill.
That’s kind of one of her main games, is that she doesn’t. So then I thought, I think she’s not her, I think that’s what it is. And then I thought, Wow, it kind of actually really falls into place because the type of person that a hacker targets is an older susceptible person that isn’t tech-savvy, that’s who they go after. So I was like, “It actually kind of fits perfectly into her story that she gets hacked.”
I thought it was so great. I have to talk to you about some of the choices you made with the shirt going out of the car, and being upset your wrist was broken, or knocking over beans and now it’s slippery, so great. Can you talk about just torturing Brennan?
Rekha Shankar: So what’s funny is everyone assumes I make these moves to torture Brennan, and maybe that would be a better way to pitch myself, as I know this is stupid. But I genuinely don’t believe these things are that stupid in the moment, I feel like I’m being creative, not even that, I feel like I’m being creative, because that’s giving myself too much credit. I feel like I’m just looking in the rearview mirror of my character and what I have set up.
I realize that that comes across as out of left field for a lot of people, but in my mind, I’m digging so far into the character’s tent poles. So I’m like, “Well, G13 is a hacker being put in a situation that involves physical skills.” I’m like, “I don’t have a ton of physical skills. I can try to blow them up, but again, I don’t know what G13 looks like with a D20 in brawl.” That seems crazy to me.
So I’m like, “What do I have?” I’m like, “Well, I have said he’s really greasy.” So if I were to procure a D20 in stunts, I would want it to be the G13 way. He’s not stunt driven, he sits at a computer all day. He’s wiry, he can fit through things, but I can’t imagine this man just crushing stunts.
So I’m like, “Okay, can I do something insane and just say, he’s oily enough to have an oil slick that makes his car go faster like you’re in Diddy Kong Racing or whatever and you jump on a speed ramp or something?” Now, I understand that we’re going 4,000 miles per hour, a lot of these details are really hard to keep all in line in the moment, you’re getting so much information and you’re told you have to act now.
And it’s like, “By the way, someone’s going to die in two seconds.” So I did maybe not entirely clock that. Because I understand basic physics, I understand if I stick a hand out my car window or sunroof, the wind is blowing this way and I’m trying to throw a shirt this way, I’m counteracting inertia, I understand that. But we’re in D&D, and we’re in an action movie, and how cool would it be if it worked?
That’s the question I ask to my haters, how cool would it be if it worked? Some people are upset because I asked the thing, but how cool would it be if it worked? Brennan is allowed to say no, he can tell me no at any time, but how cool would it be if it worked? Jacob farted a room asleep, because it worked, that’s my answer. I’m not trying to torture Brennan, I’m really trying to just use what I’ve set up to make an in-character decision, and maybe it doesn’t work a lot.
What Happens When Rekha Shankar Gets To DM A Dimension 20 Game Herself
“I did not realize I was granting Brennan carte blanche to do whatever he wants for a scene.”
Hey, I’m all about making the ask, I do that in my own game, my DM wants to kill me half the time. To me, the part that’s so funny about torturing Brennan is the aftermath of you daring him to defy this. And be like, “Explain why this doesn’t work.” And he’s like, “What do you mean explain it?”
Rekha Shankar: Yeah. I think to me that’s just being comedic. Just like if I get genuinely upset that it doesn’t work, that’s not funny. It’s more funny to be like, “Oh really, Brennan? Why is it that I can’t throw an oily shirt out the window?” If I actually just go, “Oh, it doesn’t work.” That’s sad.
You got to be the DM for a minute, and immediately made a choice that kind of bit you in the behind a little bit when you said, “Everyone gets what they want for a scene.” What was going through your mind when you realized what that meant after you were out of the chair?
Rekha Shankar: I thought I was just repeating what Izzy had done at the DM podium, I did not realize I was granting Brennan carte blanche to do whatever he wants for a scene. So that’s just a full on mistake. I ask for forgiveness, I ask to realize that we’re all humans. I ask you to question, if Brennan hates me so much, why do I get asked back? Just question all these things. Please know I’m not trying to hurt anybody.
I loved it so much when afterwards Brennan’s like, “How are you doing?” You’re like, “Bad, not right after that.” That was so much fun.
Rekha Shankar: Absolutely, absolutely, you hate to make a big mistake, you hate to make a big mistake.
Rekha Shankar Reflects On Usha’s Big Dimension 20 Arc
“You don’t get there unless you roll well or you have enough turbo tokens to make something stupid like that happen.”
What surprised you the most about Usha’s arc in this from when you first had conceived of this character to where she ended up by the end of it?
Rekha Shankar: I thought Usha’s big lesson was going to be perhaps as stupid as learning to turn on a computer, I didn’t think there would be a huge payoff for her. But as Brennan and I were kind of improvising, it might’ve been in the last episode, he gives me that monologue about how it’s not okay to fear change. Usha, I kind of thought she would just live in that world of change is bad, and I don’t need to adapt to the times because what I have works for me.
I thought she would kind of stay in that world and her lesson might be like, “It’s okay I am the way that I am, I love myself.” But her lesson was kind of like, “You do have to adapt.” Which I didn’t expect for her, because she’s not someone that I viewed as she can’t live by herself, she’s a danger to herself.
But I think she is a character that is, speaking of inertia, she is really plagued by inertia, she just stays there because she is there. And when the opportunity opened up of like, “Oh, can she go live with her beloved granddaughter?” It’s like, “Why not? Yeah, screw inertia, go over there, let’s see.” So that was actually really surprising to me, I didn’t know she would take that turn.
I think to me one of the parts that was so fun about this was how broken the system seemed by the end. Because you all were like, “I have a million turbo tokens, I’m just going to do this now.” For you by the end of it, what was the most fun aspect of being able to go, “Well, action movie, so it works.”
Rekha Shankar: Yes. I’m forgetting, you might need to remind me, the beans thing worked, right, because it became sky?
Yes, it became the sky.
Rekha Shankar: I think that’s awesome. And that’s why I’m saying, what if it works? To me, that is actually not an action movie trope I have seen. So for that to have worked for something to be so wet looking that it actually looks like sky and your enemy flies into it is so funny. And you don’t get there unless you roll well or you have enough turbo tokens to make something stupid like that happen.
This season is so unhinged, I love it so much. I somehow want more, but I don’t know how that would happen.
Rekha Shankar: I have no idea how it would happen. I know someone pitched the idea of there being a rom-com. Like if it was a Jumanji-esque world again, but it was a rom-com, which I’d be so into. I think that’d be awesome.
I love it. Thank you so much for talking to me, Rekha.
Rekha Shankar: Thank you so much, Caitlin, it was good to see you again.
So good to see you, I love this season. Whenever you’re onDimension 20, I’m like, “Oh, this is going to be fun.”
Rekha Shankar: Caitlin, that’s so nice, because that’s not what other people say.
About Dimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Up
Dimension 20’s Never Stop Blowing Up features six players, each playing a dual role in the story. In “real life,” they are employees of a strip mall, until they’re sucked into a magic VHS tape that transforms them into high-octane action heroes. The characters must figure out how to navigate the movie to get home.
Check back for our otherDimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Upinterviews:
All 10 episodes ofDimension 20: Never Stop Blowing Upare available on Dropout now.
Dimension 20
Cast
Produced under the Dropout TV banner/service, Dimension 20 is a Dungeons & Dragons-based television show that brings together a group of players for comedic adventures in the classic tabletop game. Campaigns last several seasons and switch back and forth between them, with many cast members returning to take on new roles, all hosted by creator Brennan Lee Mulligan as the show’s Dungeon Master.
