With Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves rolling initiative on cinemas tomorrow, audiences will soon get to see how a Dungeons & Dragons film is meant to be done. Those first three attempts in the early 2000s, after all, amounted to nothing more than three failed death saves.
Indeed, fans and newbies alike are in for a treat from Chris Pine and co., who together make up a delightful posse of champions that may as well have originated from a session of the tabletop roleplaying game itself. And with some starkly faithful nods to the source material throughout, this party presence is the icing on the cake.
Outside of Pine’s bard leader Edgin Darvis, the second most prominent member of the group is arguably Michelle Rodriguez‘s Holga, an exiled barbarian and Edgin’s closest friend.
Rodriguez, of course, is no stranger to blockbusters, being a regular in the Fast & Furious franchise and having appeared in such works as Avatar and Battle: Los Angeles. Evidently, however, she’s not as well-versed in family-friendly films, which is perhaps why her co-star Regé-Jean Page was surprised to learn that Rodriguez once played a Smurf.
In an interview with Digital Spy, Rodriguez revealed that she signed on to Honor Among Thieves to expand her family-friendly filmography, citing her desire to bring her goddaughter to the movies as a key motivator for that reason. Page, however, did a double-take when the actress listed Smurfs: The Lost Village as one of the few kid-friendly films in her list of credits.
Sorry, can I just clarify: you were a Smurf? I’m tracking down Smurf Michelle. I need this in my life.
Sure enough, Rodriguez loaned her voice to the brawny Smurf Storm in the 2017 film, and given that she’s now gone on to portray a barbarian character in Honor Among Thieves, it’s safe to say the casting directors were on to something back then. All we need now is a D&D sourcebook that includes Smurfs as playable races.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will release to theaters on March 31.