When Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves hits theaters on March 31, D&D fans and non-game players alike are in for a wild ride. On this action-packed adventure, Chris Pine’s Edgin the Bard is aided by a group of skilled cohorts, and among those fellow adventurers is Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton) as Xenk, a well-mannered Paladin who may very well be the honor among the thieves. During an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Page describes him as “the shiny, chivalrous hero,” and tells us this role was like “getting to revel in being Inigo Montoya.” He also discusses how important the overwhelmingly positive reaction at the SXSW world premiere was to the cast and crew and reveals a few inside D&D jokes.
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From writers and directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Honor Among Thieves brings the world of D&D to life. Like many a campaign, the movie centers on a particularly bizarre team of petty thieves who, after a minor mistake that may bring on the destruction of the world, must embark on a hero’s journey to right their own wrong. Honor Among Thieves also features Chris Pine as Edgin the Bard, Michelle Rodriguez as Holga the Barbarian, Justice Smith as Simon the Sorcerer, Sophia Lillis as Doric the Druid, and Hugh Grant as Forge the Rogue. For more from Page, check out the interview in the player above, or you can read the full conversation below.

COLLIDER: I want to start with a sincere “you are great in this.”

REGÉ-JEAN PAGE: Hey! I’ll take a sincere one of those.

Image via Paramount

I really enjoyed your work in this, but being serious, you have traveled the planet promoting this at different Comic-Cons. How happy are you that the movie is so awesome?

PAGE: [Laughs] I’m as happy as the audience is, at all times, Steven. That’s the rule. You get to be as happy as the audience is, and the audiences that I’ve been in [while] watching these movies are ecstatic. So I get to be ecstatic, and I’m reveling in that.

Being serious, you never know how the movie is actually gonna turn out.

PAGE: No, not at all.

So I’m sure you’re very happy.

PAGE: We spoke at Comic-Con, and we said that it was like taking the movie home to meet the in-laws. It’s like taking the movie home to meet your parents because this is the audience it matters to. So when you get that reaction, it validates everything. Because you’ve spoken to John and Jonathan, they’re hugely passionate about this movie, they’re players, and so they were biting their nails, and it’s so touching to me to see them so happy at how people are receiving it, and so genuinely. I’ll throw sincere back at you, sincerely it is actually making us all incredibly happy that people are enjoying this movie because we worked so hard on it, and we were scared because it’s hard to pull off, and it’s great to see that people are receiving it.

Image via Paramount

I watched this reaction video to the trailer from these [Dungeon Masters] that were watching it and breaking it down, and there were so many things they were pointing out that I actually didn’t realize because they’re hardcore players. So there’s a lot in this movie that’s going to appeal to players, but even if you haven’t played the game, was there something in the film that you cannot wait for real fans of Dungeons and Dragons to actually see?

PAGE: It’s hard to pick out specifics. I think that we are very, very proud of that dual-layeredness that you’re talking about. It’s a little bit like watching Rugrats back in the day like this. There would always be cartoon jokes, and then [there are] jokes that you get when you’re 20 years older, and go, “Oh, wow, that’s an adult joke slipped in there.” I think it’s very similar with the D&D stuff. I think [there are] D&D jokes, like really kind of inside baseball jokes.

Maybe the best example is that bridge scene, which is absolutely an inside joke to D&D players about your gremlin Dungeon Master sitting behind their little board going, “Ha ha ha. You set off the trap, you fools!” But also, it’s just a straight-up visual prank for every audience member in the theater, and I think it’s those dual-layer jokes do it for me. It’s the corpse scene, you know? That’s another gremlin D&D moment.

Image via Paramount

You get to actually kick a ton of ass in this movie, and I am curious, what was your reaction when you were reading the script, or when John and Jonathan were telling you what you were going to do? Because you get to be that ass-kicker.

PAGE: I think it’s getting to revel in being Inigo Montoya a little bit, you know? It’s like, I am so much the shiny, chivalrous hero. Someone previously in the interviews pointed out the first thing I do in the movie is save a cat. I think that they know full well that they’re winking towards what kind of hero this is, and then immediately subverting that, and playing around with that trope.

I think getting to do that is what really turned me on about this character. Because the straight-up hero is one thing, but then getting to play around and interrogate what heroes actually are is, I think, what the heart of the movie really is, that’s why I kind of let Edgin go and fly on his own two feet because if I did all the hero-ing for him, there’d be no hero’s journey for Edgin. There’d be no development.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves hits theaters March 31. Check out our interview with Daley, Goldstein and producer Jeremy Latcham below.