Tabletop role-playing is basically acting, so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that so many well-known actors and personalities love the game. With the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons well-established, we couldn’t help but wonder what celebrities might be interested in tomorrow’s release of Out of the Abyss, the newest D&D module. These eight famous fans of D&D immediately sprung to mind.
Think we forgot someone? Tell us who in the comments!
Joss Whedon
The screenwriter/director behind Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Avengers unsurprisingly played Dungeons & Dragons while he was attending Wesleyan University.
Curt Schilling
Curt Schilling’s name has been tarnished a bit in recent years thanks to the scandal surrounding 38 Studios, but no one can deny that he’s been a gamer for years. Not only is he a fan of MMOs, but he’s a tabletop gamer as well. He’s played Dungeons & Dragons, and he even owns part of Multi-Man Publishing, the company that owns Advanced Squad Leader.
Jon Stewart
The former host of The Daily Show has done a little bit of everything, from writing books to hosting TV shows. He revealed his interest in Dungeons & Dragons many times on his show, both with inside jokes and direct statements. When interviewing SpaceX founder and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, Stewart responded to Musk saying that his ambitions really began in college by saying, “We just got high and played Dungeons and Dragons.”
Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith does a little bit of everything. He makes independent films, writes, acts, and even does podcasts. Not only did he and his friend Jason Mewes (that’s Jay and Silent Bob to most of you) host a D&D podcast titled Crimson Mystical Mages, he also ended up introducing a couple of friends to the game that you may have heard of…
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon
These two grew up down the street from each other, and eventually went on to star in huge films together. They were also introduced to Dungeons & Dragons by Kevin Smith on the set of one of the films they did together. Matt Damon even told an Australian talk show host that he and Affleck would fight over who got to play the “magic-using elegant elf.”
Mike Myers
The former Saturday Night Live cast member and star of movies including Wayne’s World and the Austin Powers series has said on several occasions that he’s an avid D&D player. He even referred to his voice for “Lothar of the Hill People,” as his “D&D voice,” in an interview with The New York Times. Finally, he was one of several celebrities who participated in the World Wide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day in 2006.
Stephen Colbert
Learning that the Emmy Award winning, recently-installed host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is a Dungeons & Dragons fan shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, this a guy who’s a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, so much so that he even had a brief cameo in The Hobbit. He even wrote and article about playing Dungeons & Dragons for GameSpy back in 2004.
Vin Diesel
Perhaps no celebrity has more openly advocated for and embraced Dungeons & Dragons than Vin Diesel. He’s been playing for years, and in the video above, he discusses playing the tabletop RPG as a kid growing up in New York, in a world before video games. He was even selected to write the forward for 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons, a book commemorating the anniversary of D&D.
