On March 30, 2023, the fantasy adventure “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” will start in Germany. In line with the theatrical release, we had the opportunity to speak with streamer legend Erik Range, who is probably better known to many as Gronkh. Just like in “The Lego Batman Movie” or “Spider-Man: A New Universe”, the LetsPlayer also got to lend his voice to a character in the fantasy movie.
FILMSTARTS editor Stefan Geisler was able to talk to the Twitch streamer about the rising popularity of pen and paper, 80s fantasy movies and new blockbuster franchise ideas.
gronk: I’m the chancellor Norixius and I’m a dracomen – although I’m not quite sure now how man relates to dragons. And I stand for justice and justice. That means: I take all the rubbish off the street. I then have to judge how much rubbish is really in there and then I have to try to elicit the truth from people and judge it.
gronk: My problem is that I am usually not allowed to do this process at all. Because people often just want the Gronkh voice for some absurd reason. I think that’s okay, but I also find it difficult. Because people know the Gronkh voice very well – for example from my streams. Then when you hear them in a movie, it’s suddenly like a pause.
That’s why I would really like to experiment a bit with the voice or try it out a bit. When I play myself, read lyrics or set characters to music, I do it that way, I give them a different voice. However, dubbed roles usually require me to use my own voice. But here in “Dungeons & Dragons” it’s a little deeper voice, because it’s just some kind of dragon.
gronk: My hope is that it doesn’t stay that way and that a real true cinematic universe now follows! “Dungeons & Dragons offers so much. It’s already a huge world. There are countless cities, countless creatures, actually countless storylines. You can do an incredible amount with it.
The main problem with many of today’s film adaptations – whether games or books – is trying to appeal to a general audience. You don’t just want to reach fans of the brand, genre or setting, you want to open it up to everyone. But this breaks everything down to a general taste. Then the result is just a general movie with a general setting and general humour. That gets boring very quickly.
As you just said, what you really want is a world with its own rules, with its own rough edges. And there are currently only a few exceptions, such as the adaptation of the series “The Last Of Us”, where the creator Neil Druckmann himself was involved and made sure that it did not fade.
gronk: My spontaneous answer is “Monkey Island” – but of course it has to be said that the “Pirates Of The Caribbean” movies actually did quite well. “Pirates” and “Monkey Island” inspired each other. Which I’d like to see more of, but that’s also because of my very specific taste: there are so many really good horror games out there that I can imagine would work well as a movie too – but not with all the slapstick jump scares, but what a real good psychological horror story.
gronk: The basement kids back then, who played “Pen & Paper” in the basement, but also many things on the PC, on the console, and now all grown up, working in the bank or in the supermarket, have the childishness of then and they remained excited for these things and started again. That’s why board games are so popular – and after all, Pen & Paper is like a board game, only longer and with stories you write yourself.
I think that’s why pop culture is so much bigger these days – not just games, but all media, also certain magazines or fantasy movies or the whole superhero complex – that used to be such a geek topic, but everything is much more socially acceptable these days and I’m there happy every day.
gronk: Honestly, I have to say that I haven’t had much contact with “Pen & Paper” in a long time. With “HORDE” that really came about and I even had a little trouble finding my way when the others were already more experienced. I’m still green behind the ears. It’s incredible the momentum that builds and how differently you can play it. You can also play it well with a very serious setting, you can play completely crazy, you can only do a short individual game – that’s up to you.
What I really love: You have those stories that are already there, but you can tell them all by yourself. It’s up to you how you find this solution – maybe in a way that wasn’t actually intended. Then something is invented in the middle of the game, how you might solve it differently, or some characters become independent and suddenly find objects that you can later use for things that were not planned at all. You may have enemies that you should kill, but then tame.
You just don’t have that set structure like in the movies or even most games where you might have a choice, but it doesn’t really matter. With “Pen & Paper” everything is super flexible. That’s the fascination, because you never know what to expect.
gronk: There is, of course, Star Trek. It would be cool to do some supporting roles there – in general, that goes for all those things I know from my childhood. But what I want to do for everyone is roles where I can disguise my voice. With the Joker, for example, I sounded way too much like Gronkh for my taste. I would like to disguise myself and work more with my voice – I can imagine that, especially with funny animations or something. Then I’m not picky.