ACTING UP – Episode #20: Charlotte Nicdao
Welcome to the 20th installment of ACTING UP, a Casting Networks column designed to call attention to standout performances in TV, streaming and film. Other than spotlighting exceptional work from recent projects, this feature shines a light on how certain actors got to where they are now. Have a peek and then check out these noteworthy performances to help hone your craft.
For tremendous 20: Charlotte Nicdao plays the talented yet somewhat temperamental lead engineer, Poppy Li, in the funny new Apple TV+ series, Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet. (Series debut: February 7, 2020)
The Performer:
Charlotte Nicdao
The Series:
Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet
The Performance:
When you’re a woman trapped in the male-dominated field of video games, chances are you’re gonna have to fight a battle or two along the way.
That’s never been more true for anyone than Poppy Li, the lovably quirky lead engineer for Mythic Quest, the insanely popular video game played by 11+ million people in Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet. You see, Poppy (played deftly by newbie Nicdao) is on her own quest to demand all sorts of things from her colleagues in the wildly entertaining workplace comedy. Everything from respect from the engineering team that she routinely micromanages… to props for the new features she introduces to the game, which often get misused to a comical and rather cringeworthy degree.
Evidence A: The time Poppy introduces a new tool to the game — a shovel — that gets used mostly to dig a particular part of the male genitalia in open fields. Or B, the time she introduces a community feature to the game called “Dinner Party” (often with jazz hands) that ends up as a place where white supremacists gather. It seems that every time Poppy asserts herself, a slew of unintended consequences occur. All this, of course, drives her a bit mad, which is when we get to see Nicdao, the actress, at her best.
Whether she’s being obnoxiously thirsty for a compliment or in the midst of losing her sh*t, Nicdao proves her gift for being insanely watchable. Often seeming like the kid from class who always has her hand up (but is getting consistently overlooked), Poppy’s character blossoms as season one progresses, especially as she indulges a job offer — once she starts feeling underappreciated by her bosses, most notably, her narcissistic and egomaniacal creative director, Ian Grimm (played by Rob McElhenney).
In a show that seems to be a hit (it’s already greenlit for season two), Nicdao shines as the most noteworthy female presence on the show, which has a somewhat brilliant ensemble thanks to co-creators Megan Ganz, Charlie Day and McElhenney. All three hail from a little show you might remember that ran for 14 seasons on FX called It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Incidentally, the comedic hijinks that ensue and jokes that come out of the video game development space at Mythic Quest might remind one of other successful shows that were hyper-focused on a particular world like HBO’s Silicon Valley and NBC’s Community, the latter of which you may remember Danny Pudi from. As it turns out, Pudi is also part of the Mythic Quest team, playing the passive aggressive mastermind in charge of monetization — while serving as another prickly element in Poppy’s field.
The Career:
When you first hear 28-year-old Nicdao speak in Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, it becomes abundantly clear that she’s Australian. True to her country of origin, Nicdao brings her Aussie accent to Poppy, which only makes her quirky character more endearing as she spits out phrases such as “Dinner Paaahhtty” no less than many times to unenthused coworkers.
In addition to a small role in the Marvel-ous Thor: Ragnarok (2017), in which she played a Sif actor, Nicdao has also appeared in several Aussie-based TV shows such as A gURLs wURLd (2010-2011), Camp (2013) and Get Krack!n (2017-2019), a series that satirizes morning television, in which the actress played a character with a similar name, Scarlett Nicdao.
Most recently, Nicdao gained a bit of fame down under for an Aussie made-for-phone series shot vertically (à la Quibi) called Content (2019). In it, she plays Lucy Goosey, a narcissistic 23-year old who goes viral after flipping her car while live streaming. Ironically, the crash did the rounds on Facebook in real life, after people mistakenly believed the accident to be real.
What’s no accident?
That Nicdao has crashed onto the American scene — perhaps for good.
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Related articles:
ACTING UP – Episode #8: Jake Manley & Charlotte Beckett
Acting Up – Episode #23: ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ Actor Lexi Underwood
Acting Up – Episode #25: Arturo Castro
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Gregg Rosenzweig has been a writer, creative director and managing editor for various entertainment clients, ad agencies and digital media companies over the past 20 years. He is also a partner in the talent management/production company, The Rosenzweig Group.
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Gregg Rosenzweig has been a writer, creative director and managing editor for various entertainment clients, ad agencies and digital media companies over the past 20 years. He is also a partner in the talent management/production company, The Rosenzweig Group.
