One of the first major recurring topics on this YouTube channel was the quest to find the original live-action FMV actors from the first Resident Evil game. All the way back in 1996, these people were the faces of characters we'd come to know and love for nearly 30 years at this point. But, in the end credits, they were only listed by their first names. So, for decades, you just got people making up all kinds of theories about who these people were: "Maybe Capcom didn't use their real names because they were porn actors," or "Maybe they were just friends of the developers," "maybe they were random people that they found on the street"—actually, that one kinda turned out to be true for one of the actors.
The identities of these actors had eluded the fan base for over 20 years. But then finally, in the late 2010s, little by little, the actors would be found, in large part due to the efforts of the French Resident Evil bloggers, fred_derf and dr_raichi, of The Raccoon Stars Blog, as well as Alessandro Conti, who runs Games and Movies Blog.
If you're interested in more of the specifics of how the actors were found, I have a bunch of old videos that go more in-depth about that.
Let me briefly summarize how these actors came to be the members of STARS Alpha team. The casting was done by an agency called Inagawa Motoko Office, which specializes in casting foreign talent for Japanese productions. After submitting some of their talent for consideration, the cast was handpicked by Shinji Mikami. Charlie Kraslavsky, who would become the original Chris Redfield, worked for the agency as both talent and an agent, and he actually previously worked a number of times with Eric Pirius, who portrayed Albert Wesker. The agency also provided Inezh, who portrayed Jill Valentine, and Jason Durkee, who portrayed Joseph Frost. They were having a bit of trouble filling the role of Barry Burton, and then one day, one of their agents spotted an Australian school teacher named Gregory Smith in the streets of Japan. Linda, the actress for Rebecca Chambers, is the one cast member who came from a different agency. She was actually more in the fashion modeling world and hadn't done much acting before. Until these actors became aware of the fact that they were the original faces of what would become one of the biggest video game franchises in history—although Inezh and Jason have seemingly been a bit reluctant about the fame that had been waiting for them all these years—the rest of the cast have gone on to fully embrace the Resident Evil community, and they've been making a lot of content along the way.
Some of the highlights are Charlie revisiting the original shooting location from the opening FMV and also remaking the original intro. They've done a lot of stuff with the YouTube channel Residence of Evil, including a few reunion videos and some of the cast actually playing the game for the first time.
But, most ambitiously, you have the films.
In 2024, Residence of Evil released a short film entitled The Keeper's Diary: A Biohazard Story. Directed by Andrew Salo of Residence of Evil, it adapts the Keeper's Diary file from the original game. You might remember that file as the "Itchy, tasty" file. The short stars Charlie as The Keeper, and it's narrated by Joe Whyte, who played Chris Redfield in the 2002 remake.
To me, this is probably the best piece of live-action Resident Evil content that's ever been made. I'm sure a lot of you guys are like me, where every single attempt to adapt Resident Evil into something live-action has just been a massive disappointment. Even if you managed to keep your expectations low, they still managed to do worse somehow. But this right here, it's like, "wow, these people actually played the game." Finally, something that embraces the lore rather than just making some shit up and calling it Resident Evil. And there's just so much attention to detail. When I saw that painting of the woman in the hallway outside The Keeper's room, it was apparently a set that was built by hand—I was like, "wow, these people actually get it."
After the success of The Keeper's Diary, the team of Residence of Evil have set their sights on a bigger project. Directed by Andrew Salo and written by Adi Attavane, RESURRECTION: A Biohazard Story will be a series of four 15-minute episodes, this time with Eric Pirius, Charlie Kraslavsky, Greg Smith, and Linda repricing their roles almost 30 years later. To tell me more about this project, as well as his history with the games in general, I spoke to Chris Redfield. Here's the interview:
Whang: Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Kraslavsky, a.k.a. The original Chris Redfield.
Kraslavsky: Thank you for having me.
W: Yeah, dude, it's an honor to have you. The story of you guys, the original Resident Evil Actors, was one of the first major stories I ever covered on my YouTube channel. You speak fluent Japanese, right?
K: [replies in Japanese]
W: Yeah, what he said. Yeah, but that actually factored into—I had seen in one of the interviews, you'd mentioned that the company that cast Resident Evil, you also worked on the management end of that to some degree, right?
K: The agency was called Inagawa Motoko Office, and they had a different business model than the other talent agencies. So she had—I think at one point, she had about 10 of us. We were talent, but we were also, like, managers, so we were managing mostly Westerners for Japanese film and TV production. So we would do the calls for the castings, we would take them to the auditions and interpret for them and also on set. But, sometimes we'd be wearing two hats: sometimes we'd be the manager and one of the talents in the production. Sometimes the crews would be scratching their heads going, "What? I thought you were the manager."
W: When you're on a set and people are wearing multiple hats at once like that, it always gets confusing. And everyone that was cast in Biohazard, they were all under that company?
K: So years later, I came to find out that Linda was not.
W: Oh, interesting.
K: Linda, who played Rebecca, when we had our last little meetup/reunion, and when she recounted it, because I had just assumed we must have hired everybody on the shoot.
W: Yeah, that's normally how it goes on productions.
K: Yeah, but I think they added that Rebecca character last minute, maybe.
W: Oh, that makes sense, yeah.
K: So myself and Eric Pirius, Greg Smith, and the guy who played Joseph—Jason Durkee and Inezh, we were all with Inagawa Motoko Office. Inagawa Motoko Office was supplying lots of extras—you know, westerners as extras, and also as starring role talent in Japanese film, TV. Guys like Eric were freelance, so he was with multiple agencies. Greg remembers that he was just, like, walking down the street, and he got approached by one of our agents because we had the sketches, and they wanted us to match the sketches to the talent, and I guess we didn't have anyone on the roles that looked that much like Barry. One of our agents was just walking down the street, and there he was, and he looked exactly like the sketch. But Linda was more along the lines of, like, a fashion model. She lived that life where they packed, I think, probably 10 girls into one apartment, and then every morning, they'd throw them into a van, probably be going to, like, 10 different auditions every day, you know that kind of thing. I think she was actually underage, like she legally probably shouldn't have been doing it. I think she was only 14 or 15 years old.
W: Oh, wow.
K: Yeah, things were a bit looser back then.
W: I believe people suspected that that about Jill as well.
K: Yeah, they were both really young. Linda didn't know what she was in for, got the call the day before, got there, and she remembers they just spray-painted her hair and threw the costume on her. That kind of a situation. She had no idea what she was getting into.
W: I remember actually, because in the video—in the original Resident Evil, your hair is very red. I remember you talking about how they had you keep the beard and they had you shave the beard, and it was all kinds of like—they didn't know what they wanted you to do with your hair, pretty much.
K: Yeah. The sketch, he's kind of like, not exactly blonde, but more on that end of the spectrum. They wanted to just make me go full-on blonde hair. But because my hair is so dark, my hair is dark brown, almost black—not anymore, now it's more salt and pepper—but yeah, back then there was a very small window in the production because it was really low budget, they only had two weeks from soup to nuts to get everything done. There wasn't enough time to get my hair blonde. So they decided to just peroxide my hair, and that's what they used to be made.
W: That's how you wind up with that red. Yeah.
K: Yeah. It makes it look kinda like orangey and, yeah, there was this debate whether I should have some scruff or not. Shinji Mikami, I remember, was very in favor of me being scruffy, but there was one lady who was in charge of wardrobe and makeup, she was adamant that, 'No, Chris, he's ex-military, and he would be very fastidious about things like that. He would always shave.' I remember this like back-and-forth.
W: That does stand to reason, I think. But then again, he's in a different division, so he might not be [as fastidious about always shaving].
K: Also, he's out in the field, so it's like, who knows how long he's there. I think that was Shinji Mikami's argument. I think the last meeting before we did the shoot, I came to the last meeting with some scruff because it was the day before the shoot, and then that was the day they were going to decide. Because my scruff was so dark and the hair was so light, it just kinda looked odd, and so we all just figured 'yeah, let's just do it clean-shaven.'
W: I feel like, too, the bleached hair, that look is so iconic to Wesker that it would have been kind of confusing if they landed on a fully blonde Chris. How long were you in Japan in total?
K: I was born there, raised there, left and did some college for a while and went back. So if you add it all together, I was there for about 21 years.
W: Oh, wow.
K: I left for good when I was about 26.
W: I feel like that's the opposite of a lot of westerners experience with Japan who wind up there.
K: When I was younger, I had a set of friends that were my neighborhood friends that were all Japanese, and we would play stickball in the parking lot near where I lived and do chambara, which is like sword play. Like, we had these toy swords and pretend to be samurais and cowboys and things like that. I had that set of friends until I was, I don't know, probably 10 or 11 years old. And also my set of friends from school, which was an international school. So there was a lot of American kids that were expats and also European kids. Some of the kids in the school were either Japanese or half Japanese, but had been born abroad, and it's too difficult to transition them into a Japanese school, and so they ended up in our school. Either Japanese or half- Japanese kids, and their parents had a more international outlook and didn't want their kids to go through the Japanese system. So I had this kinda hybrid situation of—y'know our school was very westernized, almost very American in a way, in the way it was structured and in the sports that we did and the theater programs and music programs and things like that.
W: I was recently contacted by Adi, who would have written the upcoming movie that you guys are doing. It's a Resident Evil fan film called Resurrection, correct
K: Yes. RESURRECTION: A Biohazard Story would be the full title.
W: It's a fan story, so you guys are repricing approximations of the characters.
K: Right. Inspired by our original characters, it's a story that is kind of taking place in pretty much the present or very recent past. I think it continues the story after Resident Evil 8. It's like a universe that Adi, the writer—she goes by beggybeggbegg on social media—and she's like a lore expert and an amazing writer, so she was like the perfect choice for writing it.
W: She had written Keeper's Diary as as well, right?
K: Beggy was a producer on The Keeper's Diary.
W: Oh, okay. I got that mixed up.
K: And that's basically as faithful as possible to the document that you find in the first game that chronicles the downfall of The Keeper.
W: I watched it last night in preparation for this interview, and I was so, so impressed by it. If you were a genuine Resident Evil fan back in the day, you have to watch this. Basically, the short...
K: Thank you.
W: Yeah, you did an incredible job—everyone killed it on that. So, like, the original Keeper's Diary, it's basically the first thing you see in the game that really paints a picture of what life was like before the outbreak inside the mansion. So what they did was they made a short film where Charlie portrays The Keeper, the guy who wrote the diary, and you kinda go back into the time leading up to him ultimately becoming a zombie. Did you ever watch the Resident Evil movies back in the day?
K: Yeah. So I have a funny story about that. I think—not necessarily when it came out—but the first time I saw it when I was living in LA, so it's much later, actually it was maybe 2012, and it just came on. So I happened to watch it. I was like, "Gosh, this looks familiar, but who's Alice? The production I was in was called Biohazard, and I had no idea that they'd renamed it to Resident Evil for the other markets. So I just kinda dismissed it as, "Oh, yeah, they must have just gotten inspiration from Biohazard because it looks similar, but there's no Alice."
W: That's so funny. I was going to ask if you were familiar with that movie before you knew that you were Resident Evil. That's so good.
K: Through a kinda series of coincidences, I had no idea that I was part of Resident Evil until about 2000—I think, I want to say '16 or '17—because they didn't put our names in the credits. I left Japan shortly after we filmed it, and it was after that that they ran into some copyright issues and had to change the name. No one ever contacted me after that, and I had no idea.
W: It was a strange choice to credit you guys just by first name. But at the same time, I feel like that contributed so much to this being a mystery people are invested in. Because if the credits had just said Charlie Kraslavsky, it would be like, "All right, well, there he is. That's the end of the story." But now it became like a scavenger hunt a bit to find you guys and get you back together. But yeah, going back to the [W.S. Anderson] movie, it's a very controversial movie. I'm sure you're well aware at this point because it is not faithful at all to the games. Some people say that if you ignore the fact that it's a Resident Evil movie, it's a decent horror movie—I would disagree with that. But, to watch Keeper's Diary, it's the polar opposite of that. I think there's this dogma where people say, "Well, if you make an adaptation, it has to be different from the source material because people already saw it, they'll get bored." But instead, [the creators of Keeper's Diary] remained true to the source material and just took something that existed in the game and just fleshed it out without contradicting the lore. Have you guys had communications with Capcom over this?
K: There was a contact from them when we launched the crowdfunding for The Keeper's Diary. They contacted us just to make sure we weren't trying to make a film that would be for-profit with a theatrical release and all that kinda thing. They just wanted to confirm that it was a fan film and that it's not-for-profit and all those good things.
W: I mean, very clearly, every dime of what you guys raised went into that production because there's a lot going on for such a small production.
K: I think a large portion of—y'know it was about $50,000 that we raised for The Keeper—I think a large portion of that went into post-production because that's what's really expensive, like creating the Hunter, the CGI for the Hunter.
W: That Hunter looked so good, too.
K: Yeah, and we got that for a bargain, but still, it's not cheap.
W: Yeah. The set, that was built in a studio, too, right?
K: Yeah. So the set was built in Utah, where Andrew works. We filmed the teaser trailer using that set. Once we got the green light to do the film, he packed it up in a U-Haul and drove it all the way cross country. Him and his dad drove it through these snowstorms—I think they almost got stuck in Colorado. I think he got there maybe a week before we started filming. It was, at first, just him and his dad putting the set together. And then one of the producers, who paid for the executive producer perk, he flew himself out there on his own dime, and he helped us massively. Rob, he just was awesome. He was right in there.
W: I feel like this is the series, too. It has that community around it where it's just super passionate about having everything being done as well as possible. You're just going to find people like that.
K: It's an amazing fan base, and I'm really enjoying getting to meet some of them. The first experience for me was we flew out to Germany because we had some producers from Germany involved—and originally we were going to film in Germany, but that fell through, it was just too expensive. So there's this guy Andi Sperling from ScreenFire Germany and Krešimir Knezović—his channel is called TheatricalChicken—they paid to have us come out to Germany, and we did a remake of the intro scene, but it was a little bit comedic at the end.
W: I think I saw that.
K: Yeah, it was incredible. They rented a forest in Bavaria, a private forest, overnight. The cast and the crew were all fans. It was kinda like my first exposure to actually meeting fans—was this production. And it was raining for five hours, so we really got to know each other really well—we're all just huddled in this hut. I just had so much fun meeting them. And a lot of German people speak English quite well.
W: Oh, yeah. If you try speak German to them and they can hear an American accent or any kind of other accent, they'll just respond in English. They're not even going to try to do German with you.
K: Yeah, just cut to the chase. And since then, I've had the pleasure of attending some conventions and meeting fans that way. The most amazing fan base, the most loyal. So many incredibly talented people, too.
W: I feel like in communities like this, in general, where you have this base of very hardcore people who've been with the series for decades, you are always going to find these people who have some kind of talent that they'll want to apply to this. With the follow-up story now, so can you tell me a little bit about what's happening in RESURRECTION: A Biohazard Story?
K: So, in Resurrection, we kind of pick up the action after Resident Evil 8, Wesker is dead—but somehow he's in this production. I don't want to do too many spoilers, but obviously, somehow he's there.
W: Typical Wesker thing to do: still be alive.
K: Yeah. So it's not too much of a stretch. And we really, really wanted Eric to be in it as well. And so in this scenario, it's like Chris is kind of... he's over it. It's like there's just been so much corruption within the ranks. So we also introduce a virus, so it's very much in line with what could have happened after 8. It takes place in Mexico, we're getting the team back together to go in and deal with this, because, all the newbies—they just either they don't know what they're doing or they're corrupt. So it's like, I'm getting the crew back together, going in to take care of it. It's a story about how Chris is dealing with all the aftermath of everything he's been through, Jill is dealing with the aftermath of what she's been through, but then there's all these familiar things and callbacks between Barry and Jill and things like that. There's some subtle callbacks.
W: To get you guys together to do a movie like this, it's very clearly done for that audience of the hardcore original fans, where you're going to want some callbacks.
K: And I think they've done it in a smart way, and it's not really—I mean, maybe there's a little bit of cheese, but not much.
W: Yeah. I'm expecting it to have the right amount that you would expect from a Resident Evil game. It's cool, too, to do it with those characters. Because Rebecca, I think she hasn't been in a main game, aside from [Resident Evil] Zero, which took place before Resident Evil. There's a lot you guys could do within the framework of those characters that doesn't contradict the lore. You can just tell your own story and expand upon what we already know.
K: I think that the timing is interesting, with Requiem coming out right now. We couldn't have asked for better timing.
W: Yeah, that's perfect.
K: I don't know if—do we get a little bit lost in the algorithm that way?
W: I don't think so.
K: Or is it in our favor? I'm not sure.
W: The fact that Capcom, too, they seem like they're okay with you making the project as long as you're not profiting from it, which—it's a little rare with not just video game companies, but Japanese companies in general. A lot of times they don't want that, but they understand how important the community is for this series. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried—I mean maybe—let me not go that far to say they would try to co-promote something, but I think it would probably benefit the movie if it winds up coming out around the same time.
K: Requiem is slated to come out in February next year. I think we're also kind of shooting for around the same time of year. So, hopefully, it would be around the same time.
W: What I would love is for them to do, I don't know, maybe have you guys as skins in Mercenaries or something.
K: Oh, yeah. That would be a dream come true for me.
W: Yeah, that would be a dream come true for the fans to have you and all the other originals playable. But you guys are eyeballing February for a release then. When are you looking to shoot?
K: So we would start shooting in the middle of August, and it'd be a fairly quick turnaround. I think it's just about two weeks.
W: Yeah, you're planning to do everything in Utah, right?
K: Yeah. And that was a little tricky, too. There were some reasons why it would have been nice to shoot some of it in other places, but it just gets too messy. So, they managed to figure out how to just do it all in one location. The sets, I think, mostly are going to be inside a warehouse kinda building. And then I think there's some exterior stuff.
W: Yeah, they did show some outdoor locations, I think it was in the Kickstarter pitch for Resurrection. Resurrection is going to be a series of four episodes, right?
K: Right. Should total about one hour. Yeah, basically, each segment is somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes.
W: Are they going to be shot in an episode format, or is it going to be shot as a movie?
K: Yeah [episode format].
W: Okay. Yeah.
K: Yeah. So four episodes. I don't know if they will all be released at once, or maybe they'll do them one week apart or something. Yeah. In the perks, there's an early access. So I know people who purchase that perk, the early access 4K digital.
W: Oh, yeah, that's what I wanted to get into. So tell me a bit about the Kickstarter campaign.
K: The campaign, one of the most popular perks so far—because I guess last time with The Keeper's Diary, it was kind of a learning experience for us, and we wanted to have a Blu-ray as one of the perks. But, I think they were afraid, like we're not allowed to do that or something. But we've looked into it, and that's not the case—we are allowed to. So the Blu-ray, which is gonna have all four episodes of RESURRECTION: A Biohazard Story. But not only that, you also get The Keeper's Diary all on one disc. And there's lots of other really cool perks, including cameo videos, personal calls, t-shirts, posters, and they just added another one a couple of days ago which is selling like hotcakes, it's Linda as Rebecca in the basketball uniform.
W: Oh, I saw that. I saw that yesterday when I looked at [the Kickstarter]. That's so smart.
K: It's like, half of them sold overnight.
W: It's Linda posed as the basketball costume that you find in Wesker's drawer in the second game.
K: In Wesker's drawer. Yeah. They're trying to keep just adding more cool stuff because we're finally getting—y'know the campaign has been going on for, I think, about 40-some-days already, and we had a really, really great start—and then there was this lull.
W: It happens in those campaigns.
K: Yeah. And it's picking up again now. So, I think they're trying to think of even cooler perks. So they keep adding cool new stuff.
W: So after I watched Keeper's Diary in preparation for this interview, I just went into the campaign and grabbed the executive producer perk. I'm just like, I'm going all in on this.
K: I heard. I'm so grateful. That is so, so generous.
W: I mean, seeing what The Keeper's Diary was, I'm like, yeah, I'm totally down to just put down a good amount of money on this to make sure it happens and that I can attach my name to it like that. You can watch Keeper's Diary for free on Residence of Evil's YouTube channel. I highly recommend you go watch it after you watch this video. If you are a Resident Evil fan, there is no film production that has done it as much justice.
K: And The Keeper's Diary was kinda like a "Super Friends" team of all these people that have been streaming about Resident Evil for, like, decades. Anthony from Let's Talk Resident Evil was there, and Andy from Biohazard Declassified in England was one of the producers, and Nougie was the cinematographer—I think he's been one of the longest running guys that was streaming gameplay and stuff. They just all came together, and it's kinda growing. This next production is, y'know, four times bigger, basically.
It just feels like this community of people has this energy around it where it's like, this is the thing that's going to—the thing that really encapsulates what this kinda Resident Evil media should be.
K: Right. You could say it's spreading like a virus.
W: [Laughs] Perfect. Thank you so much for doing this.
K: Thank you for having me. Thank you for your generous donation, and let's just keep our fingers crossed. We really want to get this thing done.
W: Yeah, I really want to see it get done. Everyone who's watching, no matter how much you want to contribute to it, they have great perks up and down. I'm going to link it in the description. Charlie, it's still so surreal. I'm talking to Chris Redfield. What the fuck? Charlie, thank you so much. Charlie, thank you so much for your time. It was great talking to you.
K: It's my pleasure. Great talking to you as well.
So full disclosure, the team behind this movie had actually approached me about doing this as a sponsored promotion for the Indiegogo campaign, which runs until the end of June. But I was so impressed by The Keeper's Diary and so excited to see Resident Evil in the hands of people who seem to actually know and care about the series. That I decided to put down some of my own money and become an executive producer on the project.
There's a huge range of perks for any size contribution you might want to make. I just feel like this is the kind of project the Resident Evil fan base has been clamoring for forever. And now, not only do you have the project like this with people who could be trusted to do the game justice, but you also have the actual original actors. This really is a once in a lifetime thing. I'm sure that a lot of you guys are going to be as excited about this as I am, so I hope to see you jump aboard the campaign.
