Nick Apostolides has been playing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil for most of his life. He lived through the glory days of Leon Kennedy’s cheesy one-liners and Chris Redfield’s constant desire to punch giant boulders, while also suffering the darker periods where Capcom didn&rsquℱo;t seem to know where the series was going. Now, he&rꦆsquo;s an integral part of Resi’s newfound resurgence.

“My history with Resident Evil is a 25 year story,” Apostolides tells me. “The first game I ever played was in 1998. It was Resident Evil 2, the OG, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Then the first game I got to enter the franchise with was RE2, which is a bit surreal. That started a fandom of my own and then I got to reimagꦫine [Leon’s character] in my own way. It’s crazy.”

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Apostolides goes on to describe 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil 4 as his favourite game of all time, so to have Capcom suddenly come knocking and ask him to reprise the character yet again, brought up a mixture of anxiety and excite♔ment: “There’s the pressures that exist as a fan, and then the actor side of having a job to do. Leon is very different in two versus four. He was a naive, wide-eyed boy scout rookie cop in two, and then he goes to badass with a pretty short fuse and quippy and everything in Resident Evil 4. So I just wanted to be true to the games as a fan because I knew what the reactions would be like, while still wanting to inject facets of my own personality into it because it would feel more real and genuine. I think we nailed it.”

Leon and Ashley surrounded by zombies in Resident Evil 4 the video game

Resident Evil 4 is a longer, and from an acting perspective, presumably a far more daunting project to take on. Leon grows so much as a character, brimming with courage and charisma that, in many ways, Apostoli🌊des wasn’t expected to provide before. Despite the pressure, the experience of jumping into the role yet again was easier than expected. “I felt more pressure for Resident Evil 2,” he tells me. “I didn’t know what to expect, filling in those shoes from the late Paul Haddad was very daunting. But Capcom reassured me to trust myself. They said, ‘We cast you for a reason. We want to see the essence of Nick.’ I trusted them, but this time around I knew what to expect from the fandom, I understood the legacy of the original game very well, and the process of filming was way more fun for me. I got to be the cowboy, John McClane, Die Hard-type Leon that I wanted to be in Resident Evil 2, but he ❀wasn’t there yet.”

Apostolides describes our initial interpretation of Leon as a blue-eyed boy who “hadn’t seen the dark side of the world yet” and how his debut performance tried to maintain that blissfully naive innocence, but when the time came for Resident Evil 4, he knew it was okay to have fun. “Scripts were very long for this game,” he explains. &ldqꦺuo;We recorded way more variations on a lot of the lines. With two, we had little grounds for freedom and changing up lines here and there, but with 4 we tried everything we wanted.” The actors, localisers, cinematic and narrative directors all worked together to hone new interpretations of these characters that both remained faithful to the original and weren&rsqu♍o;t afraid to have fun.

Leon and Claire facing down a horde of zombies in Resident Evil 2 the video game

As for the lines he’d put among his personal favourites, Apostolides has two, one of which he wrote himself: “When I fight one of the bosses I say something like ‘You wanna get ugly? Let’s get ugly!’ I just liked that one. And ♌then my favourite one of all time is another quip to a boss, which is ‘I’ll give you a holy body!&rsquo💮; It’s so bad but so good. There’s no other way to say it.” Apostolides slips into character so naturally as we talk, but currently has no idea if he’ll return for potential future remakes.

“I don’t know their plans,” he admits. “And I don&rsqꦺuo;t know if the🌠y’d remake six. It’s still a pretty modern game and I know that people weren’t happy with it, but I mean, whatever Capcom chooses to do and if they ask me back, I’d be honoured.”

While we’d touched on the fandom briefly, I’m left slightly taken aback when I bring up Leon’s status as gaming’s greatest himbo only to learn that Apostolides is not only oblivious to such a trend, he also doesn’t know what a himbo is. “Leon is just one of those guys. He’s a great looking guy with perfect hair. A lot of ladies love him. Guys wanna be him. It’s just that kind of fandom. He’s got cheesy lines,𝄹 so m🎉aybe that makes him a himbo? I have no idea.”

Leon fighting off attacks with a knife in Resident Evil 4

It really is that kind of fandom, a space where an actor’s original perform✨ance is often only the beginning. You become a source of admiration fans cling onto, public figures that gain followings on social media by interacting with players while unafraid to have fun with 🌸situations very few are ever going to endure. However, this parasocial reality can be suffocating.

“It’s really strange for me to experience that from this point of view,” Apostolides says. “There are so many roles that really talented voice actors play, and they book many per year. That’s what they do, and they have illustrious careers with all these credits. But there are a good handful of iconic characters you can eventually voice or play or do mocap for who have that kind of standing in the community. Resident Evil is one of those franchises with the undying loyalty of the fanbase who is attached to these characters, the voices, and suddenly fans are like, ‘Oh my god, you’ve voiced this character I&rsqu🍒o;ve loved for 20 years I need to know who you are!’ and they go nuts with it. It’s really weird to experience that, and I never expected that as an actor. But it’s here, and finding the balance between engaging with that and trying to find a balance in your own life has been tough, and I’ve learned that over the past few years.”

Unfortunately, the weight of fan expectations can often result in needles♍s toxicity, which we saw surface in recent weeks as Lily Gao’s performance as Ada Wong was met with so much hostile derision that the actor locked down her social media presence entirely. Apostolides is quick to tell me that t♈he two recently exchanged words of encouragement before delving a bit deeper into how a franchise like Resident Evil comes with a lot of unexpected baggage.

Leon posing with a gun while Chief Mendez reaches for him in the Resident Evil 4 video game

“I gave myself as an example. When Resident Evil 2 came out it happened right away. Some people liked the voice, but a lot of people were attached to other actors who voiced Leon so they didn’t quite accept me. You saw the negativity with the positivity. I told her that first of all you can’t take it personally. Anytime you’re taking on the role of a beloved character, people will have their opinions. If people aren’t happy, those will be the loudest voices. It’s not that you don’t have support, it’s just the ones who really need to make their voices heard online are the Twitter trolls, and they will make you understand that 🎃they don’t like you.”

Apostolides believes tha🐼t actors who put themselves in the public realm must be prepared to take criticism and have the ability to detach vocal toxic fans from their own personal worth. If you are on Twitter, taking interviews, or willingly engaging with fans, you are going to hit upon idiots who thrive on this sort of harassment, especially when geared towards women, queer folks, and similar minorities. It is the norm right now, but actors shouldn’t have to expect that.

“Everyone is entitled to opinions,” Apostolides adds. “But to spew hate, and DM actors to say you are absolute garbage, go f*** yourself, don’t act again. That is not acceptable. If you’ve got that much hate in y💙our heart send it somewhere else. I’m sorry your life has been so bad that you have to do that, but it’s pretty sad.”

Leon parrying a chainsaw attack from villager

Resident Evil 4 has been out for a couple of weeks now, and Apostolides is slowly working through the campaign with his younger brother, essential🍸ly splitting the playthrough in half so they can both bask in its greatness together. He tells me that, much like the classi𓂃c original, he’s probably going to end up beating this thing 50 times over the next few years. I have to ask though, whether stepping into a role this iconic makes it any harder to immerse yourself in the act of sitting down to play.

“Believe it or not, I’m able to disconnect my experiences,” Apostolides says. “When I play a Resident Evil game for the first time it’s a very surreal thing, even before I got involved with the franchise. So everything [Capcom] did, I was just taking it in. New areas, ♛familiar areas, the guys who were kinda the same, but now they’ve changed them a little bit. My mind was just in overdrive processing what I’m seeing. The only time I went back to nostalgia of filming was in the cutscenes because there’s nothing to really play through, experience or survive. But after that I’m right back into gameplay where I’m just a gamer ha🐼ving a great time.”

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