WIL WHEATON dot NET

50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong

Answering a FAQ: “Why do you play so many evil characters lately?”

Every actor has a particular type they can play well, for some reason or another. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with who we are in real life, but it's just what we do well.

Example: Travolta is amazing as the Lovable Loser. When he's in Welcome Back Kotter and Saturday Night Fever in the 70s, he is the biggest star in the world, because people can identify with him in a way they may not be consciously aware of.

Then, in the early 80s, the industry decides to make him The Leading Man. They put him in films like Perfect and Urban Cowboy, and his career tanks. Nobody can connect to those characters, because it's not the right type for him to play. He does those talking baby movies for awhile, and then he explodes back to the top of the A list when he plays a junkie hitman in Pulp Fiction. He's back to being the Lovable Loser, and audiences go crazy for him, because that's the type he's meant to play.

You can do this with just about every actor if you look hard enough and spend enough time on it. It's all about Jungian Archetypes and Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces.

So why do I play evil characters? When I was a kid, I played the sensitive, awkward kid full of self doubt who really wanted you to like him*. When I was in my 20s, I kept getting auditions for those roles and never booking them, because it's just not the type I'm meant to play. When Kim Evey cast me as a douchey agent in Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show, and Felicia wrote me into The Guild as douchey Fawkes, things started to turn around. I realized that I'd found my type, and I started looking for those roles.

It turns out that my type is the Villain You Love To Hate, so that's who I am in The Guild, Leverage, Eureka, and Big Bang Theory. I don't think it's a coincidence that, once I started playing these types of characters, my acting career began to come back to life, and I will be grateful for the rest of my life to Kim and Felicia for taking a chance on me.

I really don't know why this is my type, but whenever I try to figure it out, I start to feel like Lenny with the rabbit, and I really don't want to break something that's working out pretty well for me right now.

I do know this, though: the whole point of being an actor is to portray characters who are different from who you really are. The most important thing in the entire universe to me is kindness, so it's really fun to play characters who are antithetical to my personal ideals. Exactly why I seem to be so good at doing that, though? I'm not going behind that particular barn.

 

*Incidentally, that's pretty much who I've been in my real life since I can remember.

22 August, 2012 Wil 71 Comments

A few pictures from GenCon

Today and tomorrow, I'm narrating the audio version of Zach Weinersmith's The Trial of the Clone. I'm up nice and early because I'm apparently on the same schedule as my puppy.

In place of a proper post about GenCon (which was exhausting but lots of fun), here are a few pictures of awesome things I saw while I was there, starting with epic cosplay:

Walter, Donny (RIP) and The Dude.

Walter, Donny (RIP) and The Dude.

Corinthian

The most terrifying and perfect Corinthian cosplay I've ever seen. She made the eye pieces out of soft leather and affixed them with spirit gum. Amazing.

Dalek and River Song

Adorable Dalek and River Song

My favourite part of signing is meeting people who love the same things I love, and geeking out about those things. It's genuinely wonderful to talk with hundreds of people who are from The Tribe, you know? Signing for hours and hours at a time can get tiring, though, and one of the ways I restore HP and Mana during the day is by amusing myself when it's appropriate. Here are a few examples of me doing that at GenCon:

Edition Wars

This is from a game called Edition Wars. GMs are trying to get players to play their system, and you can make your own GM. So I made myself.

Sheldon Cooper

I sign a LOT of Big Bang Theory things, and whenever I get a chance to sign a picture of Jim as Sheldon, I write something like this on it. It amuses me almost as much as it tends to amuse the person I'm signing it for.

A ranking of Moustaches

Just, you know, ranking Moustaches on a scale of Hitler to Brimley. Like you do. And, yes, I realize I spelled Chaplin wrong.

Munchkin Cards

I'm also asked to make Munchkin cards from time to time. These are two of the ones I did this year. Steve Jackson even made them tournament-legal for the duration of GenCon!

People make me amazing things, and give me wonderful gifts at cons. Here are a few of the things I got to bring home:

8-bit Wheaton dice bag

This is a handmade, hand embroidered dice bag with 8-bit me on it!

Lego Sparks McGee

This Lego Sparks McGee is best in life.

Tabletop Fan Art

Tabletop fan art!!

I was so busy signing, I only got to play two games: Fiasco with my friends, using a playset they wrote me for my birthday, and True Dungeon with many of the same friends, where we sent the Draco Lich (Formerly known as the dragon Smoak, who I kind of one-shotted in 2010) to the void. You're welcome, people-who-no-longer-live-in-fear-of-the-Draco-Lich.

I can't even count the number of people who told me wonderful, personal stories about how Tabletop has touched their lives. When I have some more time, I'll share a few of them.

20 August, 2012 Wil 27 Comments

Please meet the newest member of Team Wheaton

adorable puppy
We were introduced last week at the Pasadena Humane Society, when Anne and I were there for a tour of the new facility WWdN readers helped raise the funds to build.

We were standing in the lobby, talking about how much we love Seamus, when a worker walked in with this puppy. She had the exact same dopey happiness and demeanor as Seamus, and as you can see, very similar markings.

Just like when we met Seamus, we weren't looking to add a dog to our pack, but Riley is almost 11 and doesn't want to play with Seamus as much as he needs to play, and after a few minutes with this pooch, we couldn't stop thinking about her.

A couple of days later, we made the decision to get on the waiting list and see if we could adopt her. Today, we took both of our dogs to the Humane Society to meet her, and the whole pack came together perfectly.

Riley made it clear that she doesn't want to play, but snuggling is fine. Seamus made it clear that he's a big old dope who just loves to play as much as a 4 month-old puppy.

New Dog (she has a name but we're keeping it secret until she comes to live with us next week) took correction from Riley and respected her limits immediately, and played with Seamus until they were both wiped out.

We love her. She's a little underweight, but the vet at the Humane Society checked her out and said she's otherwise healthy, so she'll be spayed in a couple of days, and come home to her new house and her forever family on Sunday.

…OMG THAT FACE AND THOSE FEET!

15 August, 2012 Wil 75 Comments

In which my wife is entertained by our pets, and I am amused.

Anne had minor ankle surgery last week, so she's been at home since Friday, recovering.

Our pets are all incredibly excited that she's been a captive audience for them; both cats and both dogs have happily spent entire days on our bed with her.

Yesterday, our cat Watson got himself all worked up, and spent close to a half hour running around the house, chasing ping pong balls and his tail with equal enthusiasm, and generally cracking both of us up. Just before he exhausted himself, he jumped up onto our bed:

 

Watson attacking a cast.

Of course, she put googly eyes on her cast before we even left the hospital.

 

She told me that she was laughing so hard, it was shaking her foot. I guess Watson wasn't too happy about that:

 

Watson is not pleased

Watson is not pleased.

 

Watson went to sleep soon after these pictures were taken.

Later in the evening, while I was sitting in my office (in the front of the house), I heard Seamus barking. It wasn't his "HEY HEY HEY THERE'S A THING OUT THERE!" bark, or his "I SEE YOU DOG! I SEE YOU THERE! **** YOU, DOG!" bark. It was his "OMG I LOVE TO TALK TO YOU HUMAN" bark.

I didn't think anything of it, until I saw this video Anne put on the YouTubes a few minutes later:

 

I was worried that she'd have to be home alone while I was at GenCon, so we arranged to have a couple of friends come and trade off staying with her for the rest of the week… but now I'm pretty sure she'll be just fine while I'm gone, and she'll probably end up having a cast party (HA HA HA) with our friends.

14 August, 2012 Wil 19 Comments

Is it really only 2 days until GenCon? Yes. Yes it is.

On Wednesday, I'm heading to GenCon in Indianapolis. I had a great time when I was there before, and I'm looking forward to attending this year.

Here's what you need to know, from GenCon:

Wil will be signing autographs in the Autograph Area of the Exhibit Hall, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning. Check local signage for exact times.

I hope that I'll have some time to do a True Dungeon run (since I killed a dragon the last time I was there), and I also hope that I'll return with lots of new games to consider for Tabletop. If you feel like tipping me off to something new and awesome, feel free to do it in the comments.

If you are coming to meet me, and want to give me some dice to add to my growing collection (it's for science!), I'd love to receive them.

Finally, this is an important thing I have to restate at least once a year:

I got the Swine Flu at PAX Prime, and it was the worst two weeks of my life. When we went to PAX East, all of us (Jerry, Mike, Kurtz, Straub, Paul and Storm, The Professor and Mary Ann) all agreed that we wouldn't shake hands, give hugs, or engage in human contact with people, to limit the introduction of infection vectors. Most people understood, and we gave each other the old Iron Guard Salute (not the fascist thing, the gaming thing that looks like like "love" in ASL). The result: a few people were cheesed off, but none of us were too upset about that, because none of us got sick. It was the first con I've gone to in my whole life where I didn't get some form of Con Crud, and I'd like to repeat that until we turn out the lights on Planet Earth. So, tl;dr: I'm not going to touch people at the con. I know it seems weird, but I hope you understand why. I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm trying not to get sick. 

 A non-zero number of readers seem to have a real problem with this, and people on the rest of the Internets are already giving me a hard time about it in very unkind terms. This makes me really sad; I hoped for a little more empathy and understanding. Not that it should matter, but I have Epstein-Barr, so my immune system isn't as robust as a normal person's; it is very easy for me to catch viruses and other nasty things. I'm not going to apologize for not wanting to get sick, especially after two weeks of Swine Flu. If you can't understand that, it's your problem, not mine.

Back to happier things: I'm going to bring some Tabletop posters, and a few of those silly 3 Wheaton Moon posters. I'll also have the usual collection of 8x10s. 

The best part of GenCon last time I attended — other than slaying the dragon, of course — was the time I spent talking with people and geeking out about the games we love. That's actually what I love about nerd cons in general, that we can let our geek flags fly without feeling even a little self conscious about it. I'm really looking forward to doing that again.

In addition to True Dungeon, I hope to have a Fiasco with some friends, find a Parsley RPG to play (or at least watch), get a new Utilikilt, and — of course — come home with lots and lots of dice.

 

 

13 August, 2012 Wil 111 Comments

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