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What kid doesn’t pretend to be the characters they love growing up? I still have distinct memories of running around a field during recess and acting like Ash Ketchum, throwing imaginary Poké Balls. For most people, that schoolyard fantasy ends there. Not for Nick Apostolides, the voice behind Leon S. Kennedy from 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake through this year’s Resident Evil Requiem. His gig voicing one of gaming’s most beloved heroes has been a kid’s wish come true.
“I became a die-hard fan in 1998 when Resident Evil 2 came out,” Apostolides told Polygon in a video interview ahead of Requiem’s release last week. “When the first one came out, I was 12. I wanted to sleep over at my cousin’s house, and we were going to play Resident Evil. My mom thought it was too violent. She said ‘Well what do you do in it?’ I said, “Well, you can blow a zombie’s head off with a shotgun!’ And she goes, ‘No, you’re not playing that!’ So fast-forward two years later, when the sequel came out: I didn’t tell my mom! I slipped over to my buddy Joe’s house. We played that game and I fell in love ever since. I’ve loved Leon ever since that moment.”
If you’ve enjoyed Apostolides’ take on the wise-cracking Leon over the past few years, you can thank the stars for what now feels like a cosmic connection. It’s the result of Capcom taking a gamble on a know-it-all fan who believed that his fondness for the character could translate to a performance old and new players would love. That’s quite a risk, but Apostolides is an example of casting someone who has grown up with the character going very right.
Labeling Apostolides as a Resident Evil superfan is selling him short, of course. Before first voicing Leon in Resident Evil 2, he worked as an actor outside of games. He popped up in some small horror movies and even a Hunger Games fan film throughout the 2010s. It wasn’t until around 2015 that he realized that video game voice acting could be a natural next step for his career.
“One day, I met a girl working on a fan film,” Apostolides said. “I said ‘What do you do mostly?’ and she said ‘I’m a video game actress… I do motion capture and stunts for Call of Duty. I do the voices, and yell ‘GRENADE!’ A lightbulb went off in my head. That can be my career? Video games? I started pursuing it, and the very first audition I ever got was for Resident Evil 2 remake. I prepared well for that, like any other action film. That wasn’t alien to me. I poured my heart out to casting and said ‘I know everything about this franchise!’”
As if by fate, Capcom was won over by Apostolides’ passion and cast him as Leon. It turned out that Apostolides wasn’t just puffing up his chest without good reason. Once he started the project, he quickly realized he was as up to speed on the character as he so confidently claimed to be.
“At that time, there was almost nothing they could tell me about Leon Kennedy that I didn’t already know,” Apostolides said. “What I was most curious about was how they were going to change him, if at all. He’s the same guy from the original. It was the same general arc of a story with a modern twist to it, with more grounded dialogue… He’s not just one-dimensional. He’s not this stoic badass. It’s hard to put him in any one box, because he’s multifaceted.”
I had my own opinions every time they changed up a voice actor for Leon.
Since then, Apostolides has taken that role and made it his own. After Resident Evil 2, he got to voice Leon in Capcom’s excellent Resident Evil 4 remake. That was yet another childhood dream come true, especially as he got a chance to give his spin on one-liners like “Hasta luego!” that he’d loved as a kid. When he told me about saying that line specifically, he reminisced about loving it so much because it reminded him of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic “Hasta la vista, baby” in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, another of his childhood favorite media moments.
As much as all that is a fantasy fulfilled for Apostolides, a role like Leon can come with some nightmarish scrutiny too. Gaming fans have a history of being protective over their beloved characters and franchises, and the Resident Evil fandom is no exception.
“There was a lot of pressure going into it, because I was a fan myself for 18 years before my audition,” Apostolides said. “I understood what that meant. I had my own opinions every time they changed up a voice actor for Leon. If I had reactions, everyone else is going to have reactions. But then you realize that you have a lot of new fans… A lot of people come up to me at appearances and say ‘Resident Evil 4 is the first Resident Evil game I ever played!’ And some of these kids are teenagers. To them, I’m the only Leon they know. And some of the OG fans also respect what I’ve done because they know I respect the source material, and I respect the performances that came in the past.”
Faithfully reliving Leon’s past glory days is one thing; bringing him into the future is another beast entirely. For Resident Evil Requiem, Apostolides had a more complex challenge on his hands. He’d have to evolve the character in a story that takes some liberties with his usual quippy persona. Leon is older and more weathered in Requiem, forced to face the trauma he’s always harbored after surviving Raccoon City’s destruction in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Getting that right would be a matter of getting across the weight of a moment that gave Apostolides chills the first time Capcom told him about Requiem’s “couple tons heavy” return to Raccoon City.
“I think in past games and some of the CG films, his PTSD has been presented in the correct way for those projects, but there’s no hiding that here,” Apostolides said. “When he is forced to return to that and face the demons, that is going to be on display. The pain, the need to reconcile everything that’s happened and come to terms with who and what he is, and why he’s there. That’s the center of it all for me. And just to see how a 50-year-old Leon still kicks ass.”
That work seems to be paying off so far. Early reactions seem to suggest that fans love the direction for Leon in Requiem. (Some maybe a little too much.) Having played the game myself, I can see why. Apostolides brings a gravity to the role, playing on Leon’s trauma in subtle ways that stick. In one scene, he’s struck by a memory of two people who he crossed paths with in Resident Evil 2, who became victims when the city was blown to smithereens. “Never again,” he says in a somber growl while looking out at the ruins of the city he was sworn to protect as a rookie cop. It’s a loaded gun that Apostolides handles with care.
While it’s unclear where Resident Evil goes from here, Apostolides’ work as Leon is bound to continue considering the warm reception to Requiem. Someone will need to voice him if Capcom ever tries to salvage Resident Evil 6 with a remake, after all. Why better than a guy who knows the character inside and out? It’s worked for three great games now.
Apostolides seems like he’s down for anything. He’s just happy to have a character that was part of his DNA growing up become part of his identity as an actor now. And of course, as someone who has been thinking about the character for nearly 30 years, he has plenty of ideas about where he’d like to see Leon’s story go next if he gets to continue the ride.
“I’ve always thought that if they had made a DLC or spinoff about Operation Javier, his time training with Krauser… It would be a bit of a tangent, because I don’t think any zombies were present… but if that was a DLC, that would be pretty cool,” Apostolides said.
