I have long admired Deborah Ann Woll from first seeing her as Jessica on True Blood to her roles as Karen Page in Daredevil and Punisher to watching her on the MEGA Stage at Game Con Canada acting out some of the most exciting tabletop games I have seen. Just a few short weeks ago, she was announced as the new face of God of War, with a 20-minute trailer for God of War Laufey, and I literally squealed.
Back for the third time at Game Con Canada, Woll brought her game Tales From Woodcreek to the GCC MEGA Stage, which was a complete blast. Beforehand, we were able to sit down with her after her on-stage Q&A to talk about her career and how it spans mediums. Woll was able to speak to the depth behind the characters she plays, her love of storytelling and what it is like to finally show off God of War Laufey after knowing about it since 2018!
For starters, you are one of the people who keep coming back to Game Con Canada. What about this con makes you come back year after year?
Deborah Ann Woll: Well, I was just joking in the other room there; I feel like an honorary founding member because I did the very first convention, which wasn’t really a talent convention in that strict of a sense. But I had such a great time, and I had actually just come from a really terrible convention.
And then I came to this one, and they treated me so well and were so organized and on top of everything. And I just felt so well taken care of at a time when I really needed it.
The Canadians killed you with kindness.
Deborah Ann Woll: They did. It’s the best way to go, the best way to die. And I just loved it so much. And then they invited me the second year, and I was like, “Well, you know, you don’t usually do two in a row because you use up…the region doesn’t want you as much anymore.” But we ended up doing D&D games instead. Like, instead, we ran games, and that was so amazing.
And I had done a run of games online that had a few Canadian participants who then came in person to do the games with me that second year. And so, you know, when they asked again this third year, I was like, “Absolutely!” This is like one of my top three conventions that I do. Absolutely, one of my favourites. And as long as they’re asking, I will be here.
As you said, your love of tabletop gaming is very evident. One of my favourite clips of you is you getting Jon Bernthal to play Dungeons & Dragons, saying, “You’re playing D&D right now.” I love that. What about that whole world of tabletop makes you want to get people into it and show them in quick little snips what they could be doing?
Deborah Ann Woll: I think people have a mistaken idea of what Dungeons & Dragons is, what RPG tabletop games are. Either they think it’s like Magic: The Gathering because that feels like their kin, or they think it’s a board game. And I always like demystifying that and saying, “No, no, no, you actually already know how to play D&D,” because there was a barrier for me when I was a kid, and I really wanted to play this game.
No one asked me, no one taught me, no one invited me. And so it took until I was an adult to find someone to welcome me in. And I went, “Oh my God, this is what I’ve been missing for like ten, 15 years. I could have been playing this for so much longer,” and I didn’t want anyone else to have that experience.
I wanted them to feel like this is something. If you have the idea this morning to play, you can play this afternoon. You don’t have to read three giant books. You’ll do that later once you’re hooked. Right?
That’s the gateway!
Deborah Ann Woll: Right. We’re going to start by making this an imagination game where every single person’s unique perspective and experience can flavour it a different way. And we need all of these unique perspectives to come in. And then you can get obsessed, read all the books, and figure out the rules.
You have to look into the event Lucca Comics & Games in Italy. We go every year. I got to play D&D for the first time with Jeremy Crawford.
Deborah Ann Woll: I played with him several times.
We played in this, like, medieval church. It’s a walled-in city. It’s the craziest thing.
Deborah Ann Woll: That’s amazing.
But that’s beside the point! You’re at Game Con Canada for Tales From Woodcreek. Tell us about it.
Deborah Ann Woll: So if you don’t know, Tales From Woodcreek is a sort of live D&D RPG show that I created on the Dungeon Dudes YouTube channel. So if you’re a fan of the Dungeon Dudes, you’ll know them, and it’s kind of a mix. It is D&D, but it is also escape rooms, LARPing, and, like, immersive theatre, right? So it’s very site-specific.
So for our first season, we chose the Black Creek Pioneer Village, and we filmed on location in those incredible old houses. And we used those spaces to create puzzles. And we sent them out into the woods at night with nothing but a lantern and made them search through these rooms and do things on their feet. So it’s a very different kind of D&D experience.
I wouldn’t go into it expecting your traditional sit-at-the-table playing D&D. We do a little bit of that, but we do a lot of other stuff too. My writing partner and I, the creator of the show, Ed Gass-Donnelly, just wanted to be like, “How can we find a new riff on this actual play type of space?”
So if people take away one thing from Tales From Woodcreek or from the performance at Game Con Canada tonight, what do you want that to be?
Deborah Ann Woll: You can make this your own, right? We’re doing a live game tonight at seven p.m. here at Game Con Canada. And we have so many wild ideas up our sleeves; we’re going to be a lot of things that we’re going to be trying for the first time tonight. We hope that it will work. But like, try stuff. Right? This is all an experiment.
So if you have an idea for your game that hasn’t been done before or is a little out there, but it’s really unique to your perspective, please try it. Give it a shot. The best game is going to be the one that you’re excited to tell. You don’t have to be Critical Role. You don’t have to be Dimension 20. You don’t have to be Tales From Woodcreek, right? You get to be exactly who you want to be. So we’re trying to expand the idea of what these games can be.
You are part of Marvel, one of the biggest things in the world. Again, I’m a big fan of Punisher and Daredevil. Do you have any favourite moments from filming? You said you’ve been this character for 14 years, right?
Deborah Ann Woll: Yes, we started in 2014.
I’ve been watching it that long.
Deborah Ann Woll: I know.
But anything that really stands out in your time of being this character and filming with these people?
Deborah Ann Woll: I mean, I will never forget season three, episode ten; they decided to do a Karen episode, and that was our showrunner, Erik Oleson, for that season, who’s one of my favourite writers and showrunners that I’ve gotten to work with. And we took the entire crew and relevant cast to upstate New York to film in the snow on location. And we did this little family drama in the middle of his superhero show.
I just was so blown away and grateful that he had faith in the character. He had faith in me, and we put that time and energy into this story. It was one of the most creative weeks of my life. I ended up just being sick that week, but it didn’t matter. We just gave it everything we had. And I’m so proud of that episode, and I’ll never forget the generosity of that.
I heard you say on the Game Con Canada MEGA stage that what made you want to play Karen in Daredevil was when you saw where they were going to take the character, rather than just “the girlfriend”. But every character I’ve seen you play, whether it’s Karen or Jessica from True Blood, or whoever, they have depth. They have strength, but also moments of softness. So how do you find that balance in your characters, and how important is it for you to have that in the characters that you play?
Deborah Ann Woll: I like people who are contradictory. I think contrast is what makes things interesting. So you want people who are strong but also vulnerable, who are liars but also truthful, you know? I think these are important storytelling facets. Right?
So in terms of how I balance it, I think it’s always just, again, leaning into the specificity of each moment, remembering history and where you’ve come from and how that is going to paint your perspective on this moment. So if I am looking through Karen Page’s eyes at this moment, in this scene, what am I seeing?
That means I can look at Matt Murdock and I can see someone who saved my life. I can also look at someone who’s broken my heart. I can also look at someone who is rageful and violent. And I can also look at him and see someone who doesn’t go far enough, right? We can see all of those things as contradictory as they are in someone else. And so that is my job as the actor in any given moment: to look at him and see something different and let that affect me.
So as gamers and as a woman, we can’t not talk about God of War Laufey. Come on. That was crazy. That was crazy!
Deborah Ann Woll: I’m so freaking excited.
We cover these events from home, and I have two children, and I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I’m like, “What is happening?!!!” My son’s like, “Are you mad at someone?” I said, “No, I’m so excited!!!” So, how does it feel?
Deborah Ann Woll: Oh my God, I can’t tell you. I still pinch myself. You know, again, I’ve known about this for nearly ten years, and I haven’t been able to talk about it.
Ten years?!
Deborah Ann Woll: Nearly. He pitched it to me in 2018, and they had known about it before then. It’s wild. Like when Corey brought me in to talk about doing Ragnarök and show me the 2018 game, he already had a poster for the Laufey game with me and a cube. A cube that’s been there since the beginning. It’s deeply a part of the lore.
It’s my—I’m willing to say my favourite job I’ve ever had. And I’ve had some kick ass jobs, so that is saying a lot. The team at Santa Monica Studios—I have a lot of anxiety and a lot of self-doubt. And when I, even with Daredevil, after having worked on that character for 14 years, I walk on that set, and I will have moments where my self-confidence will crash.
Moments where I go, “Nobody wants me here. What am I doing? Nobody cares about this character.” Like, your brain does terrible things, right? I’ve never felt that way on this set. There’s just something about the supportive environment and the creative intent, right? They want everything to be great and purposeful, and it’s just exciting to be a part of that.
I can’t believe I get to. As I said out there, I’m in this middle zone where they’ve been working really hard for years. I come in for a couple of years and do my part. They continue to work really hard. So when I first saw that trailer, my jaw hit the ground.
Us too!
Deborah Ann Woll: It’s the first time I’ve been able to experience my work as a viewer without judgment, without self-consciousness, because I knew how much work went into it after me, and that I can just appreciate that, like the technology, but also the animators; they caught every little muscle movement that my face can make.
And I didn’t know, you know, Kratos is so stoic. I was like, maybe the technology can’t capture little movement, you know, because he doesn’t make a lot of facial movement. But it’s also just because that’s the character. So it wasn’t sort of utilizing that. So when I watched this one back, I was like, “Oh my God, every single little muscle movement, my eyes, little tiny things that they captured and put in that make a fuller, richer person,” and I couldn’t, I really I was blown away.
You’ve been a character in this world before, but now you’re going to be the face of God of War Laufey. Yeah.
Deborah Ann Woll: Or the back?
Well yeah, I guess! How does that feel for you? Especially if you’re talking about things like insecurities, what’s that like?
Deborah Ann Woll: It’s such a privilege. Honestly, I feel nothing but gratitude and responsibility. And, you know, all I can say is that every minute that we put into this video game was about how can we make this fun and how can we make this heartfelt and like, we just want this to be the most exciting adventure for the players. They were on our mind the whole time.
I don’t know really—I get emotional even just thinking about it—because I do. I pinch myself that I get to be a part of this and that I get to lead the charge for a little bit of this kind of new direction. The other direction is going to continue going forward. But we’re going to put a little time and focus on expanding this world and really trying to say, this is us doubling down on the world of God of War.
We want this to be huge. We want you to feel like there’s such an untapped universe. And this is just the beginning of a step into some of that.
Now, for people that have been playing God of War for years and years, what can you tell us about this version like, “Hey, this is still your God of War.”
Deborah Ann Woll: Well, again, I mean, it’s this expansion of mythology, this expansion of story. This is, we now know we’re allowed to say, going to run concurrently to 2018 [God of War]. And so all of the mysteries and the little hints and clues, the questions, the lingering, you know, ideas that you have from that Norse saga, we’re going to answer a lot of that, or we’re going to expand upon it.
So this is going to feel like you are getting more story. This is going to continue to deepen what we’ve already learned.
As a woman in this industry, you are about to be the face of something that has been prominently a male face with Kratos. But how does it feel knowing that girls and women are going to play this game BECAUSE of you, not because it’s God of War? Many will play it because it is God of War, too, but some are going to play it because of you. How does that feel?
Deborah Ann Woll: I mean, extraordinary. You know, again, I’m a big believer that the more voices that we have in anything—this is my thing with D&D, right? We need as much diversity as possible within these stories so that we can tell even more stories. This is all just about enjoying each other’s perspectives and widening our experiences. If I get to, in some small part, do that for women within gaming, I’m very excited about that.
But again, I talked about it up on stage. I think we find universality through specificity. And there is nothing about this experience that Faye is having that anyone else of any gender could not relate to. Right?
This is a story about a parent. This is a story about regret. This is about being a better person than who you were before. And are you enough? Can you possibly make up for those wrongs? It’s about preparing your family for your loss. What do you want to leave to them to make sure that they’re okay?
These are universal ideas that don’t have anything to do with gender. We’re just going to see it through this woman’s perspective. I think about the people who, maybe because of their childhood or their parents now really related to Kratos and Atreus’ story. And felt really seen by that. I love the idea that now we’ll have more people who feel seen by Faye’s story, and hopefully those same people will also feel seen by that.
That is really beautiful. Before we started, we were discussing that we are both nerds of all kinds. Can you share with us some of your favourite franchises, whether it’s video games, tabletop, shows, movies? Where do you gravitate?
Deborah Ann Woll: So I’m a Mystery Science Theatre nerd. That is my favourite TV show of all time. I followed them into RiffTrax. I just think they’re the greatest. They are the foundation of my sense of humour. I got to meet them a couple times, and those were my biggest fangirl moments.
There was a San Diego Comic-Con—I have to dress up at San Diego if I want to walk around, because people are pretty intense, so I was dressed up as Axe Cop. I was on True Blood, but then the RiffTrax guys invited me on their panel to do a giveaway. So at one point I was the girl from True Blood dressed as Axe Cop on the RiffTrax panel, and I was like, all the nerd things are combining!
Speaking of all the nerd things, you are now the face of God of War Laufey. You’re a face in Marvel with Karen Page from Daredevil and Punisher, the face of supernatural with Jessica from True Blood, and you’re the voice of tabletop gaming with Tales From Woodcreek and others. So where do you want to go next? Are there any franchises you’d love to be a part of or specific stories you really want to tell?
Deborah Ann Woll: I am also a classical theatre nerd. I’ve been able to do some theatre in the last few years, but that’s where I started. So I think, if there was another facet of entertainment that I would love to really deep dive in and make a name for myself or make a place for myself, it would be within theatre.
Particularly making classical works more approachable, because I do think school does everything it can to make us feel really bored by classical works. And I’m like, “Are you kidding? Romeo and Juliet is about two horny teenagers. It is the most emo teenage thing. It is Vampire Diaries.”
That’s why I think Baz Luhrmann was really on with that movie. Those movies were huge. So I think there’s so much more just really interesting literature that has been made throughout history that, I don’t know, I’ve always loved it and I’ve always wanted to inspire others to also love it.
Thank you so much for your time. We’re going to watch you tonight in Tales From Woodcreek. We were here for the Faster Purple Worm, Kill, Kill! So I’m really excited to see this.
At Game Con Canada, Tales From Woodcreek season 2 was announced, with a Kickstarter going live on August 11, 2026. You can wishlist God of War Laufey on the PlayStation website. And finally, you can stream the latest seasons of Daredevil and catch up on Punisher now.
