Why Leon From Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness Sounds So Familiar

The Netflix original anime "Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness," based on the "Resident Evil" survival horror video games from Capcom, will debut on the streaming service this Thursday, July 9. The anime is set to focus on two fan-favorite characters: Claire Redfield and Leon S. Kennedy, who became series protagonists starting with "Resident Evil 2" in 1998 (the series is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year). "By adding suspense into dynamic action scenes, this series will reveal a Resident Evil world unlike anything seen before," the press release from September 2020 said about what fans can expect from the show.

If you're eager to watch this new 3D computer-animated series from production companies TMS Entertainment and Quebico, overseen by Capcom's Hiroyuki Kobayashi, you're not going to have to wait much longer. And once you catch it, you're going to realize that you've heard the voice of Leon Kennedy before. It's no coincidence. In fact, it's just one of the ways the creators of the show are leaning into and expanding the show's mythology. The voice belongs to Nick Apostolides: here's where you've heard (and maybe seen) him before.

Actor Nick Apostolides first portrayed Leon Kennedy, a rookie cop on his first day, in the "Resident Evil 2" remake from 2019, a remastered edition of the original video game that featured third-person shooter-style gameplay. He reprised the role in "Monster Hunter World: Iceborne," the expansion pack for another Capcom game that came out later in the year with a "Resident Evil" crossover. So "Infinite Darkness" will be his third project in the "Resident Evil" franchise.

Apostolides is actually a big "Resident Evil" fan, and he filmed some of the scenes as motion capture talent in the game as well. He said that he submitted for the project and when he received the script, he said, "I knew exactly what it was, I've been a fan of 'Resident Evil' since 1998, and so I was intimately familiar with this game and I knew, I knew I had to book it. And a couple of weeks later I had the part and I died and I've been dead ever since."

In the original game, Paul Haddad voiced the character. Other actors who have portrayed Leon include Paul Mercier, Christian Lanz, Matthew Mercer and Riley McShane, via Metal Blade Records. The Sphere Hunter on YouTube reports that Nick actually received Haddad's blessing to portray Leon. 

Apostolides has acted in other video games, both as a voiceover actor and as a motion capture actor. According to his IMDb, the higher-profile projects on his resume include "Madden NFL 21" and "Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond," (a VR installment of the shooter franchise) in which he did motion capture. His voiceover work can be heard in Square Enix's "Life is Strange" graphic adventure franchise, which includes "Life is Strange 2," "Life is Strange: Before the Storm," and "The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit." He plays Charles Eriksen, Chris' toxic and abusive ex-basketball-star father. He also worked on a "Call of Duty: Cold War" trailer: his hand-to-hand combat skills stood him in good stead here. 

Apostolides says that mocap acting actually resembles theatrical acting, but requires a bit more imagination, as you're not on a physical set. "If there obstacles in the scene, like just say a cliff that you have to jump over or a door you have to open, they will typically build very rudimentary wooden sets just with 2 by 4s, just to build the forms of the hallways that you have to go through so as an actor you can navigate through whatever you gotta to navigate through. And so you do have to use your imagination of where you are, the environment. If you're supposed to be in a jungle, you gotta pretend that, because you're in a warehouse with cement walls," he told In Love with the Process. 

Apostolides' movie and TV career has been less distinctive to date, but this Netflix movie should raise his profile considerably. His acting work includes stints on TV movies like "The March Sisters at Christmas," a 2012 Lifetime movie in which he played a supporting role, and 2016's "The Suffering," in which he played the protagonist. This was an indie horror film that a Starburst reviewer called "well acted, beautifully shot." His character, Henry Dawles, is a property appraiser who finds himself on a rural farm with supernatural beings led by a mysterious caretaker. 

His other projects include 2014's "American Girl," directed by Amy Campione, ghost story "The Haunting of Alice D" from 2016, and thriller "The American Templars" from 2013. Apostolides has had also the bad luck to be associated with a couple of projects that appear never to have seen the light of day. One was a 2018 project called "5ive," in which he played the main character, a young man with supernatural powers. The other is Kevin MacDonald's "The Witching Hour" with William Forsythe and Michael Madsen, which started receiving buzz around 2011 (via JoBlo) but has not been released as of 2021. IMDb has it slated for a 2022 debut, but the last time anyone heard anything solid about it seems to be around 2013. MacDonald says the film is in post-production on his LinkedIn, but it's unclear when that was written. 

Nick Apostolides has even been in a reality show from cable channel BYUtv (out of Brigham Young University, according to the Salt Lake Tribune) called "The Fixers" in 2019 and 2020 as "himself." In the series, which is a humanitarian take on the home building show genre, he is a painter and woodworker with an eye for design.

In describing the show for the network, he said, "So, we follow a team of builders that I'm on, and we go and connect with local communities and great organizations that are trying to have a huge impact on their area, regardless of the country that we're in. And this season we have gone to nine different countries, ten different episodes, and each one is infinitely different from the last one. The one thing they do have in common is that we're helping a lot of people, and we're changing lives."

In the name of show publicity, Apostolides notes that he has a culinary degree and "an obsession with ice cream." It is unclear if Apostolides is of the Mormon faith, but perhaps, should his star continue to rise, we'll learn much more about this up-and-coming actor.