Anjali Bhimani interview: the voice of Medusa and Symmetra

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical has just released, and there’s nothing else quite like it. Packed full of emotional songs, mythical characters and decisions in need of making, if you’re a fan of musicals then this video game version of going to a Broadway show will absolutely appeal to you. Stray Gods wouldn’t be as wonderful as it is without the amazing voices behind the characters, like for example Anjali Bhimani.

In Stray Gods Anjali Bhimani plays Medusa, who as you’d imagine is a fairly intimidating creature to encounter even during a musical number. No stranger to voicing iconic characters, Anjali has played the role all sorts of wonderful heroes and villains you’ll recognise. Perhaps her most well known work though is Symmetra, the Overwatch hero who uses turrets and teleportation to ruin the enemy team’s day. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to talk to Anjali about a whole host of topics from musicals to tabletop gaming, so do read on, and I hope you enjoy our chat as much as I did.

Lyle: Your character Medusa is the first openly threatening character in Stray Gods, how did you find playing such a violent and iconic character?

Anjali Bhimani: Wow, I didn’t really realise that she was the only openly threatening character, but I guess you’re right when you put it together. You know I didn’t really think of her that way first of all. Because anytime you play a character, even if they’re standardly thought of as a villain, you’re sort of trying to understand their point of view and logic.

In this particular rendition of Medusa, without giving away anything, there’s a lot underneath that makes you understand why she does what she does. I wanted to lean a little more into that, and really clock the difference between the facade and what’s underneath, and also clock the difference between the monster and the being underneath that. So yeah I didn’t really necessarily approach it as “threatening” so much as manipulative. Because she’s definitely manipulative, and you as a character can make choices to flip that script but you’ve gotta figure out what those are.

Lyle: The song where Medusa is trying to eat Grace is one of my favourite musical numbers in Stray Gods, what was it like recording this for the game?

Anjali Bhimani: Oh it was so fun. When we recorded my first session it was Troy Baker, David Gaider and Austin Wintory all on Zoom. It was during the pandemic when we were all still distancing and separate so we couldn’t be in the same place, and it was also the first session and first song that they recorded for the game. So I think all of us were trying to find our feet and figure out what the process was going to like. As a result – combined with how lovely they were, and how open to input and excited to collaborate they were, it definitely felt like a very safe place to take big old risks and try crazy stuff and figure out who we wanted her to be, and how we wanted her sound to reflect that.

So we did! The music that you hear in the game is far different from the music that I received, and that any of us received really as far as I know. Fom what Austin has told me the music that ended up being in the game was affected by how we changed the sound in that first session. So it was great. Internally it was a little daunting because it was the first time I’ve sung in more of a charactery voice that wasn’t necessarily the voice I was trained as a singer to use, but I kinda loved that. And when you’ve got Troy directing he’s so incisive and insightful, like he knows exactly how to ask for to get what he wants and what the actor needs, because he’s a brilliant actor himself. So that definitely kept me from letting that part of me that was a little bit nervous kick in.

With all the different conversation options in the game there must have been a lot of lines in the scenes starring Medusa. How long did you spend recording your lines, and what was the process like?

Oh wow, I don’t really remember, I’ve gotta be honest. I want to say three different four hour sessions, because while there are a lot of narrative branches it is a contained encounter so it’s a little different to what the main characters has to go through. But it was incredibly challenging music, very very very challenging music. You know I’ve done musicals for a long time and I loved it, it was complex and fun. They were very concentrated sessions, two or three max I think to get through it. I feel like it was two at the beginning to get through all of it, and one more to kind of clean it all up and change things once they’d started to really put everything together. I loved talking to Laura Bailey who’s a friend of mine after and hearing from them “oh wow we heard what you recorded and now we understand how this is going and we’re so excited”. I was excited that they were excited, because I was like “I don’t know how I’m going to sound but I hope it’s good”.

Stray Gods has a star studded cast full of talent like Felicia Day, Troy Baker and Laura Bailey. How was it working with all these big names?

Well I wish I get the chance to work with them, but because we were in the booth and recording solo it was just me. But so many of them are already friends of mine, and others are people that I just admire from afar like Merle Dandridge and Rahul Kohli. It was exciting to find out who was in the game as time passed, but I didn’t know from the beginning. The only person I really got to connect with when I was recording was Troy. I don’t really want to say it worked in my advantage, because look at this cast it’s so many incredible people, but I liked the chance to really form Medusa separately because she is so isolated. Her character is so separated from everyone elses. So when everyone comes in and kind of intrudes on her life, that’s when things start to get a little cuckoo for Coco puffs for her.

The greatest collaborative experience that I got to have with all of them as a cast was when we did our preview performance at The El Rey. That was like a dream come true, because I love The El Rey it’s such a beautiful majestic space. Getting to be there with friends and singing with Mary Elizabeth and Laura and Troy, it was so so so wonderful. And getting to hear everyone else’s songs really for the first time, because I hadn’t heard them. That was so great, but the bar was definitely high. High high bar!

Since Stray Gods is a musical, I have to ask, what are some of your other favourite musicals?

I have to go with the classics. West Side Story is one of my absolute favourites. I remember I did it when I fourteen years old, but then I also remember the first time I saw the movie of West Side Story. It was the first time that I watched a musical where something truly tragic happens within the show, and I thought the power of a musical to contain that emotion and put it into song in such a way that it could only be in song, that to me was exceptional.

God picking my favourites is hard. You’ve got to say Hamilton, because it’s Hamilton. I really loved Book of Mormon, just for the completely irreverent “I can’t believe they did that” factor, and I love that they brought that to Broadway.

A lot of my favourite musical songs are from shows I haven’t seen, so that’s a little tricky. Like I’ve never seen a production of Chess but I love the songs. The first musical I ever saw live was Kismet, I have a very deep soft spot for it, and those sweeping epic songs are just so beautiful.

Then there’s Sondheim, and it’s like “pick one”. We saw Merle in A Little Night Music which is truly one of my favourites, and I loved it so much that I went on opening night and then took Laura later because I wanted to see it again. So I think A Little Night Music and Into the Woods have got to be up there too.

Here at GodisaGeek we have a community full of Overwatch fans, so I have a few questions about Symmetra. What does the role mean to you?

Oh god she means so much to me. She’s so special and so dear to my heart for so many reasons. When I first went into record her and I saw what she looked like I realised there are going to be little south Asian girls and boys who have a superhero. And there are more that have come out since Symmetra, and probably more before her in comic books and stuff, but I knew that when she came out that it was going to be a massive sea change for so many people. Because when I grew up I had Wonder Woman, who was the only superhero I could sort of identify with because she was a female and she had black hair and that was it. So that’s a really special element of her for me. I also love that she is such an extraordinarily written depiction of someone on the spectrum who has taken her challenges, and figured out how their neurodiversity can serve them despite the challenges. And who has never used their story (because their story is kinda tragic from childhood, it’s not a good thing to be plucked away from your family and taken to go and work with a big company) but she never took any of the things she had to fight against as a reason to quit.

In “A Better World” that first comic book she really does make it clear that she wants to make the world a better place, and she uses her experiences as a child in the slums of Hyderabad as an impetus to make the world a better place, as an impetus to make it better for other people. Whether she’s with the right company to pull that off, obviously we know that she’s not but she doesn’t entirely know that she’s not. And I think that her discovering that through the game is a very exciting thing, like as she hears things from other characters and as she interacts with Lucio and Sombra we’re getting little glimmers of her finding out. And we don’t know if she’s going to go over to the dark side or come over to Overwatch. I love that we still have that to discover about her.

I know that there are plenty of fans of Symmetra in the Overwatch community, how does it feel for a character you’ve voiced to have such a loyal following?

Oh god it’s amazing. I’ve been an actress for many many years before Overwatch, and the Overwatch community was the the first time I’d seen a level of love and support and excitement and artistry within a community of people who were surrounding a particular property. I don’t like to call them fans because they’re just as much of a part of the game as we are, it’s definitely more of a community. It’s been wonderful. It’s been something that has inspired me creatively which is why I started my web series and wrote my book “I am Fun Size”, it was a love letter to them. It’s also been fuel for those days when maybe I don’t want to go and do the audition or I’m feeling down about acting, because I know there are people out there who need me to get up and do the thing even if it’s hard. Get up and do the auditions, get up and put that out there, regardless of how difficult it is. And Symmetra wouldn’t let it stop her so I shouldn’t let it stop me.

With regular updates and interactions with new heroes I imagine more voice lines are needed for Symmetra on a regular basis, is it easy to go back to the character after a break?

At this point she’s just a part of my skin, there’s no getting her out of my system. Usually whenever you’re playing a role that’s ongoing they will play back some of your lines as you said them before, so you have that reference as you get back into the session. But slipping into her is pretty much second nature now.

After starring in Critical Role’s Candela Obscura and the upcoming DesiQuest, your love of D&D and tabletop gaming is well documented at this point. What is it about tabletop RPGs that you find so appealing?

Everything! A million different things. I love that they are collaborative storytelling that you can do with anyone, that you don’t have to be an actor to enjoy them, you just have to know how to tell a story. Anyone who is intimidated by the mechanics of D&D or any RPG, just remember that it’s an open book. It’s not really about the mechanics, it’s about you and it’s about what you bring to the table, literally bring to the table. It’s about the stories you want to tell. I love the fact that it’s a chance for people to explore the human condition, or the non human condition, but to explore their personalities and explore the personalities of others in this safe space. Where they can take risks, where they can be something that they aren’t, where they can step into a character that isn’t necessarily morally aligned with who they are and explore what that is like. I love that there is this collaborative space where nothing matters as much as the story, but because nothing matters as much as the story magic can happen because no one is focused just on themselves.

There are so many beautiful RPGs that are out there. When I first came back to tabletop, because I took a period of time away, I was playing Outbreak: Undead by Hunters Entertainment which was a zombie apocalypse RPG. Then Savage Worlds for UnDeadwood with Critical Role, and then D&D. And they all have their virtues and they all have those special parts and systems, and there are more coming. So with Candela it’s such an extraordinary new system that they have created because they’ve taken the horror genre and injected it with hope, in a way that a lot of other horror games don’t. And they have paired down the mechanics just enough that they’re still interesting and they are still challenging, but they aren’t something that keeps you from playing the game. They’re something that helps you play the game. It’s very easy to pick up.

Recently Baldur’s Gate 3 released and is getting pretty much universal praise, have you had chance to get stuck into this D&D based game?

I have not gotten a chance! Because it came out last week and I was at Gen Con, and I actually still haven’t had a chance to be home and near my PS5. I’m dying to play because the original Baldur’s Gate was one of the games I played when I was a kid, when I was in High School and College. I’m going to have to play Stray Gods first, but then!

When you’ve had a little time in your busy schedule, are there any other video games that you’ve been enjoying recently?

Recently no. I tend to go back to older games when I do have a chance. I keep going back to Journey and not finishing it, which I need to do because Austin made the music and made the music for Stray Gods and I feel like a horrible person that I haven’t. But it’s so beautiful and so memorising that I feel like I need to just take a whole night and play that. I picked up The Last Guardian because who doesn’t want to be a kid with a puppy dragon. I’m also playing through The Last of Us for the first time after now knowing the story and how it happens. I’m now getting really into it and getting a chance to really play the game. And it’s just, I can’t speak highly enough of Troy and Ashley period, but then knowing that they created this, and Neil and all the other folks over there it’s just, wow what a triumph.

Thanks to Anjali for her time.