Sam Riegel

Riegel grew up in Northern Virginia, and from the age of six would perform in local theatre. He was cast in the touring production of Les Misérables aged eleven, and performed in The Sound of Music aged fourteen. He also had roles in television as a teenager, performing on Guiding Light and Another World. Riegel did not pursue a career in television as he disliked the lack of audience feedback. He joined an improv group, the Upright Citizens Brigade, shortly after graduating from college.^[4]

He has worked for 4Kids Entertainment, Bang Zoom! Entertainment, TAJ Productions, NYAV Post, and Studiopolis. In 2018, he received the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in an Animated Program for his work on Danger & Eggs.^[5][6][7]

He is also a cast member of the popular web series Critical Role, in which he and other voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons.^[8][9][10] Critical Role was both the Webby Winner and the People's Voice Winner in the "Games (Video Series & Channels)" category at the 2019 Webby Awards;^[11] the show was also both a Finalist and the Audience Honor Winner at the 2019 Shorty Awards.^[12] After becoming hugely successful, the Critical Role cast left the Geek & Sundry network in early 2019 and set up their own production company, Critical Role Productions.^{[9][13][14][15]} Soon after, they aimed to raise $750,000 on Kickstarter to create an animated series of their first campaign, but ended up raising over $11 million.^[10][16] In November 2019, Amazon Prime Video announced that they had acquired the streaming rights to this animated series, now titled The Legend of Vox Machina;^[17] Riegel reprises his role as Scanlan Shorthalt.^[18] He hosts the All Work No Play podcast and spinoff web series with his Critical Role co-star and best friend Liam O'Brien.^[19][20][21]

Riegel is of Jewish descent.^[22] His grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.He is the brother of actress Eden Riegel and the half-brother of filmmaker Tatiana S. Riegel. His father, Kurt Riegel, is a radio astronomer, environmental executive, and sailor. His mother, Lenore, is married to author Jerome Charyn.^[23]

Riegel lives in Los Angeles with his wife, cinematographer Quyen Tran.^[24][25] They have a daughter and son together.^[26]

On September 11, 2001, Riegel and Tran witnessed the 9/11 attacks.^[27] They were caught in the dust cloud formed by the collapse of the South Tower, but eventually escaped to Battery Park, where they witnessed the collapse of the North Tower; Riegel captured video footage that has since been featured in several documentaries.^[24] Shortly after the events, they moved to California where Tran was accepted to UCLA.^[28]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sam Riegel.

• Sam Riegel convention appearances on AnimeCons.com
• Sam Riegel at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Sam Riegel at IMDb
• Sam Brent Riegel at the Internet Broadway Database