Netflix’s “Resident Evil” series sets an original story within the sprawling world of video games. That means no shortage of familiar monsters throughout the eight-episode season, but it also meant surprising revelations for some characters.
At the forefront is Lance Reddick’s Albert Wesker, who seems nothing like his video game counterpart at first glance. This Wesker is a stern but doting father of teen girls Jade (Tamara Smart) and Billie (Adeline Rudolph). He’s also an Umbrella executive coordinating a pharmaceutical response to the T-Virus.
The season’s back half changes everything we know about this Wesker; he’s one clone of many. That also includes the version of Wesker that perishes in a volcano in the Resident Evil 5 video game. One of the series’ most unhinged moments comes when multiple Wesker clones meet, each with distinctly different temperaments. That range allowed Reddick to run wild, especially regarding the child-like variation of Wesker named “Bert.”
Reddick revealed in an interview with Bloody Disgusting that he wasn’t initially convinced about joining the series until he read the script.
“When I first heard ‘Resident Evil TV show,’ I was like, ‘Really?’ and partly because I only knew the films. I wasn’t even aware of the video games. I thought, ‘is there something for me, and who’s Albert Wesker? Who’s that?’ Then, I had the good fortune of reading for seven episodes before. I even went and met on the project. I was blown away by the characters and the relationships, and then the action and the scares were just added incentive. Then, of course, once I got to the end of episode six and realized that I was playing multiple versions of Wesker, I thought, ‘Wow. If I can do this, I can’t miss it.’ That was my favorite part of acting during the season, playing Bert.”
Whereas Bert was the most fun to play, Albert Wesker required the most preparation.
“In terms of trying to figure out the character, the one I spent the most time was with Albert, only because he’s got the most time on screen. The only thing that I really did to try to figure him out, other than just dig into the script, which is so well-written that the character’s really on the page, was a buddy of mine, who’s a biochemistry professor; I talked to him just about what it’s like doing pure science and the psychology of that.”
Reddick spends a lot of time on screen with Paola Nuñez’s Evelyn Marcus, a cold-hearted CEO of Umbrella Corporation. Evelyn is the daughter of Umbrella co-founder Dr. James Marcus, a pivotal character in the Resident Evil 0 video game.
While not explored in the series, the character influenced Nuñez’s performance as Evelyn. The actor explained:
“I had the story of Evelyn’s dad, who is part of the games and the franchise. They gave me all the information about him and who he was, so I tried to envision what kind of a father he was to Evelyn. That’s how I created my character, thinking, well, this father probably wasn’t present. Maybe not a loving father. Maybe she was always looking up at him and wanting to impress him. Right? Maybe he wanted a boy, not a girl. All these things to understand her insecurities, but it all comes back to our childhood. It all comes back to our parents. Just having that image, I mean, and that presence and that character of the father was enough for me to create this whole story and create her fears and her insecurities and the pain and the lack of love and the lack of attention which makes this adult Evelyn, that is so scary. It’s just scary because there are many things that she didn’t get as a child, like love and attention.”
“Evelyn was so enigmatic and interesting to me because I identify with her in the sense of just trying to be seen, recognized, and respected in a field like this corporate world. I can only imagine it is harder than my profession even, trying to be respected as an actress and woman. But in her case, it’s such a male-driven world. And to be a leader in that world must be hard. At an early age, I felt she believed the only way to be respected was to be feared. Feared instead of loved. She thinks that, so she believes that’s the only way that she can have control. She doesn’t want to be vulnerable because that’s scary, and that’s her motto. That’s the way she lives her life. That’s the way that she has survived.”
“Resident Evil” is available now on Netflix. Read my review.
