Never Stop Blowing Up is one of the wildest entries in Dimension 20, transporting a cast of Dropout all-stars into a chaotic action-comedy inspired setting. Two of the season’s most entreatingly over-the-top characters quickly prove to be Paula and Liv, played by Isabella Roland and Alex Song-Xia. Initially presented as a frustrated middle-aged woman and a jaded teenager, Paula and Live get to experience a whole new perspective on their life choices through the eyes of loose cannon super-cop Jack Manhattan and lethal crime-boss Kingskin.
Their roles are some of the show’s most deceptively unhinged, especially as their approaches to the more mundane characters take Mahanttan and Kingskin to some truly unexpected places. During an interview with TVBrittanyF, Alex Song-Xia (Liv/Kingskin) and Isabella Roland (Paula/Jack) discussed the joys of getting to go truly wild in Never Stop Blowing Up and the inspirations behind their character choices.
TVBrittanyF: Both of you have been in the Dome before — what did you want to bring from your past seasons on Dimension 20 to Never Stop Blowing Up?
Alex Song-Xia: I was honored to be asked to join the the gang of wild cards. I feel like my wild cardness was the most in question, and so it was nice to be a part of it and to hopefully rise to the occasion of chaos and mayhem.
You did squish people to death, multiple times.
Alex: [Laughter]. I think it was the first thing that happened in session zero.
Isabella Roland: I always appreciate the opportunity to go very big and be very crazy. I feel like it is my comfort zone. Being really let off the hook and let off the leash, and then Brennan as well being insane and going with almost everything we wanted to do at every moment, it was relaxing almost.
This season goes so gleefully off the rails — as performers and players, was having that freedom to take things so extreme liberating or intimidating?
Isabella: I think it was mostly freeing. I do think we got to a point where I was going, ‘Is this okay?’ The world had become so insane… but it was also very liberating.
Alex: Because we do need more people who don’t understand jazz and shouldn’t speak on jazz to compare things to jazz — I do imagine that’s what I think we were playing jazz. That’s what it felt like.
Alex, it was a delight this season to see Liv exploring what Kingskin’s potential and powers were, especially when compared to everyone else in the cast.
Alex: To me, there is always parts of Kingskin in Liv, and parts of Liv in Kingskin. So it was fun just to see Liv get to experience the freedom of being that part of herself. I was surprised by it and scared of it and just going for it and then pulling back and then going for it. It was a fun game to play.
By contrast, Isabella got to play the most over the top goof of a character. On one hand, she’s surprisingly grounded and saddled with very relatable flaws, but she’s also eventually cutting off the top of the Washington Monument to use as a weapon. What surprised you about that balance?
Isabella: I do very much appreciate you saying that she is grounded, and I agree. I think everyone was really great in building real people who were going through real things. But by the end, I mean, we’re in a magical action world. Let me do whatever the hell I want. I saw [Paula] as sort of a bumbling doofus — which is why she and I were rolling very badly.
Reika was blowing up over and over and over and over again, which I think is where her arc came from, fusing into G 13. I was rolling very, very, very badly. I was trying to do cool action shit that the dice were just not allowing me to do. So I was like, ‘Okay, well, you know, the dice tell the story. So this is just who she is… she’s Paul Blart and Vicki Gunvalson from The Real Housewives of Orange County.
Both of you really dove into these arcs of internal growth in Never Stop Blowing Up, pushing Paula and Liv to really grow as characters. Why was it important to both of you to have those arcs this season?
Alex: The whole season, every character has such a full backstory. I also just love the idea of like, a very small but meaningful arc. I don’t need a character to change that much. I love the feeling that something has to change, and then the change is just very small.
Isabella: I think that’s wonderfully put. I feel like Paula tries to go through something and experiences it, and then goes back to who she was because she had told herself that she needed to be someone new. And honestly, there, for some reason, there’s just something very attractive to me about middle aged women, like, really going through it. That’s why I love the Real Housewives. It’s something underrepresented in comedy.
Dimension 20 is now streaming on Dropout
TVBrittanyF.com 