Dimension 20‘s latest season, “Never Stop Blowing Up,” was a wild and inventive time for the entire cast, including Ify Nwadiew and Jacob Wysocki. The comedic core of the season stemmed from throwing a group of real-life characters — the nerdy Wendell for Ify and the alien-obsessed Andy aka “Dang” for Jacob — into the kind of over-the-top action that defines films like The Fast and the Furious, Die Hard, and James Bond films.
Even for seasoned Dimension 20 players like Ify or rookies like Jacob, the season proved to be uniquely exciting and hilarious adventure. During an interview with TVBrittanyF, Ify Nwadiwe (Wendell/Vic) and Jacob Wysocki (Dang/Greg) discuss the biggest surprises they encountered during the latest season of Dimension 20, the unlikely directions the season took, and whether they’d prefer to see a Dragon Ball or Gundam inspired season of the TTRPG-comedy.
TVBrittanyF: Even compared to other shows and comedies, Dimension 20 gets to go wild. As both performers and players, what’s it like to step into something as unrestrained as Never Stop Blowing Up? Was it more intimidating or encouraging?
Ify Nwadiwe: I think encouraging. I think seeing everyone else kind of go for it makes you want to go for it even more. ‘All right, if y’all going in, I’m going in with you.’
Jacob Wysocki: Yeah, I think it was encouraging. Maybe it’s just because I’m in it, I wonder if the audience sees it as well, how we are developing. It’s a rubber band. It’s about how far can you bend it before it snaps. We learned that it’ll never snap, and then it’s just going to get looser and looser and looser and looser and looser. It takes time to get there. I noticed as [the season] goes on, we do get crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier.
Ify, you really threw the table — and the audience — for a loop by having Wendell speak with Vic. Was that something that you had planned? How did that decision come to life?
Ify: It was one of those things where I was at the table, watching everyone do their kind of take on the ‘fish out of water’ landing. The improv instinct was, what’s a way I can heighten this in a fun way? It shortly and quickly turned into, ‘okay, Wendell will talk to Vic, because Wendell is someone who just is cannot make up his mind. Vic is someone who cannot come in second place. So I think he’s just gonna just push it.’
Jacob, one of my favorite emotional beats in the season was seeing Dang run into Wolfman Jack, and seeing this genuinely silly character have a real moment of emotion. What made that something you wanted to explore with Dang?
Jacob: I think that moment, it was definitely the dice telling the story. I was rolling so poorly that it made your brain be like, ‘Well, what does this look like?’ You start… doing this math, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I think he’s just going to revert to fully doing what Dang would do, because he’s not being Greg anymore. So it really was a device of the dice.
I think our headspace in playing this type of game, there’s going to be interactions and there’s going to be switching back and forth between what Greg Stocks wants and what Andy Dang wants. I think we all honored [the idea] that these are real people in a real world. That’s kind of what allows us to be that crazy. At the end of the day, it’s a group of weirdos and teenagers and divorcees and people who can’t commit to being in love doing crazy things, but they’re all still just those real people with real hearts and real desires and real wants.
I’ve got to say, I loved the back and forth between you guys this year, especially when the kill count came into play.
Ify: I think I was more Ify and Josh than Wendell and Dang [Laughter]. I do like the excitement and the growing like bonds in the story. I think that’s why I made such an effort to kind of have as many conversations with different people, to show where we start in the video store to see where we end up.
Jacob: I think some of the most unlikely pairings happen when two kids go to camp and they just experience like these weird seven days together. And then you’re like, ‘Yeah, somehow I made friends with a guy I never would make friends with normally.’ I think there’s a little bit of that where it’s a shared experience.
Okay, let’s say Brennan comes to you guys tomorrow and reveals he wants to do an anime season of Dimension 20, but wants your opinions: would you prefer a Gundam season or a Dragon Ball season?
Jacob: [Laughing] I think for me, it’s much easier. Respectfully, [Ify] knows more about both than I do. So I think you’re really you’re putting the heat on him. I got it’s easy, for me it’s to go Dragon Ball because I don’t have that mech love.
Ify: I’m gonna a gift you your first mech kit. You’re going to have a chill day, and you’re just going to build up a nice Gundam. It’s definitely going to be Dragon Ball Z for me, yeah. That’s a very hard one. It’s very hard, but I have to go with the one that’s tattooed on me first, and that is Dragon Ball Z.
What would you both say surprised you the most about Never Stop Blowing Up?
Ify: I think watching Wendell come into his own. When I first had that moment where… Vic is talking to Wendell, I kind of imagined that they were going to be buds. It was going to be a buddy cop situation. Then, naturally seeing how things shook out, seeing how I felt like Wendell would react to certain situations, it naturally put them at odds. I really was surprised at coming to that conclusion, when that wasn’t what I was setting out to do. Like Jacob said, it was the dice telling the story.
Jacob: Man, there were a lot of surprising things. From my character standpoint, I was really surprised when the radio tower showed up, because that was such a small little kernel that I feel like I kind of rushed through. I was dealing with the nerves of being in the Dome for the first time. I was like, ‘I’m not doing the best job setting this thing up. Maybe I won’t really focus on that for this campaign, and I’m going to make it more about his personality and this failed pirate radio stuff.’
Then Brennan brought it back and it really paid off. Not only did he do that, but he gave me an opportunity in that surprise to tonally give a different style of performance. That was where… I was looking at myself going like, ‘Oh, now I need to be real and grounded and an actor.’ I just have spent so much time killing dogs. I’m gonna completely switch tracks and do that.’ That was probably the biggest surprise, where I’m like, ‘Oh, we’re doing so much here. We’re creating multitudes.’
Dimension 20 is now streaming on Dropout
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