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The Resident Evil franchise has come a long way from the days of Leon S. Kennedy saying, "No thanks, bro" in Resident Evil 4. As we've seen in the remakes for Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4, Capcom has made an effort to retain the creepy atmosphere of the original games while giving the characters' voice actors a chance to give more grounded performances. 

Now, with the newest game in the series, Resident Evil Requiem, Capcom has left the schlocky action hero acting of the past behind for good. The cast of Requiem was made up of primarily London-based British theatre actors, like actress Angela Sant'Albano, who plays protagonist Grace Ashcroft in the game. I spoke to Sant'Albano about the experience of playing Grace in Requiem, and she revealed how the cast's training as theatre actors uniquely prepared them for acting out scenes in The Volume. While the cast wasn't working on a completely bare sound stage, there were some basic set pieces, like hallways, built for the actors to walk down, but Sant'Albano noted, "so much of it is just using your imagination, which makes you feel like a little kid again." 

Of course, there's a huge difference between acting onstage and acting in a onesie with adhesive dots all over your face and a helmet on your head with a camera directly in your face. The move to working in The Volume with digital backgrounds and in a performance capture rig was initially a challenge for Sant'Albano on the first day of filming. But the game's performance capture director, Kate Saxon, offered some wise words of direction. 

“'Think of The Volume and performance capture as doing theater in the round so you have that sense of freedom, but you have the intimacy of film and TV because the camera is right in your head, and so the player is right there with you,'" Sant'Albano said, recalling the key piece of direction that Kate Saxon gave her. "And I found that really, really freeing."

Resident Evil Requiem was also unusual to act in, because of how physical the game is.

"So it's a very physical performance... This is my first-ever video game, so from what I've been told from other actor friends who have done games, often it's voice work. [Requiem] was really nice because it was like theatre. It was just all captured at once," Sant'Albano said. 

Even if seven minutes is all you have to play with, these Resident Evil articles will get you ready for what's next:

• How to play the Resident Evil games in order
• Resident Evil shelved Leon Kennedy for 14 years because Capcom didn’t want players to see him scared
• How to watch the Resident Evil movies & TV series in order