There are few movies that make as much sense for throwing a huge, splashy panel at San Diego Comic-Con than Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Paramount’s upcoming blockbuster adaptation of the cultishly popular role-playing game.
But if Dungeons & Dragons was “playing to its base” by unveiling an entertaining trailer to 6,000 cheering fanboys and fangirls on Thursday, one of its stars may have singlehandedly added a quadrant or two to the movie’s projected demographic with a single quote.
“I had the best ass of my life [shooting the movie],” Regé-Jean Page told the crowd. Page, of course, became an instant heartthrob for his occasionally backside-baring role in Netflix’s steamy costume drama Bridgerton when the series premiered in late-2020. (Page has since left the show and seems to be smoothly transitioning to major film roles, currently seen in Netflix’s The Gray Man.)
In an interview following D&D’s panel — which also included co-stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Sophia Lillis and Hugh Grant and writer-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein — Yahoo Entertainment does our due diligence in asking Page what he did, exactly, to land in such, um, optimal shape.
“I knew this was coming,” Page admits (watch above). “It involved a lot of sword training. I got to literally swing a sword around and slay dragons for this one, which is every kid’s dream growing up, you know? And so I got to kind of live all of my dreams. I couldn’t have asked for a better time than making this movie.
“We worked it hard, we worked it well and we had a great time.”
The film unites Page’s Xenk (a Paladin) with Pine’s Elgin (a Bard), Rodriguez’s Holga (a Barbarian), Justice Smith’s Simon (a Sorcerer) and Lillis’s Dorc (a tiefling Druid) as thieves in the Forgotten Realms who make the mistake of stealing from the wrong Rogue (Hugh Grant’s Forge Fletcher).
If you understand the D&D terminology above, Daley and Goldstein (Spider-Man: Homecoming) think Honor Among Thieves will not disappoint.
“Making sure we were true to the lore was important to us,” Daley says. “But more than that I think it was establishing the tone. Because that’s what sets it apart from so many other things in the fantasy space. And it was really important to us to really capture that feeling you get when you’re playing the game.”
Adds Goldstein: “And to combine the aspects of playing the game of D&D into the movie, because it’s always a mix of action, comedy and heart and emotion. So that’s really what we tried to do with these characters.”
And those characters look like they’re in pretty great shape, too.
Watch our full cast interview above. Video produced by Jen Kucsak and edited by Jimmie Rhee.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves opens March 3, 2023.
Watch the new trailer released at Comic-Con:
