Resident Evil's Nick Apostolides Lost Consciousness Playing Leon

Nick Apostolides, who portrays Leon S. Kennedy in the Resident Evil remake games and Resident Evil Requiem, has revealed that he once passed out playing the role due to how intensely he was performing. Though it’s not uncommon for actors to give a performance everything they’ve got, even the Resident Evil actor’s co-stars were stunned by the reveal.

Resident Evil‘s Leon has been played by a number of actors over the years, including the late Paul Haddad, Paul Mercier, and Matthew Mercer, but right now, Nick Apostolides is the one bringing Leon to life. Apostolides has played Leon in four different productions so far, including Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Requiem, and animated series Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness.

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Resident Evil Actor Passed Out Playing the Role of Leon

leon Kennedy standing over bodies with a hatchet

During a panel at MegaCon Orlando, Nick Apostolides and some of his Resident Evil Requiem co-stars made an appearance, and he revealed that during his first experience voicing Leon in Resident Evil, namely Resident Evil 2, he got so into his performance that he unintentionally lost consciousness. During a chat about some of the things that go on behind the scenes while the actors are performing, Apostolides told a story of how he would sometimes use cranberry juice in the recording booth to get the right gurgly sound when Leon gets impaled. However, it wasn’t the only technique he used, as he explains that he was fairly new to voice work at the time, and got so into delivering the right sound that he literally choked himself in the recording booth until he fainted.

The actor explained that they had been recording lines for around four hours when the incident occurred, and that he had been “yelling and screaming” that whole time as Leon S. Kennedy. He revealed that he literally put his hand around his own throat and choked himself to get his voice just how he wanted it, and that after all those hours of work, he thought his brain was “low on oxygen,” and he lost consciousness and fell down in the recording booth. The voice director apparently thought it was just part of Apostolides’s performance, until they noticed that the actor was twitching and pale while on the ground. Thankfully, Apostolides was apparently no worse for wear after recovering, with his first concern being whether he had broken anything around him during the fall. While he warns listeners to not try anything like what he did, he seems pleased to note that the performance in question did make the cut and can be heard somewhere in Resident Evil 2.

With seven years between the release of the Resident Evil 2 remake and Resident Evil: Requiem, it’s likely that Apostolides has learned a lot of safer techniques to get the effect he’s looking for in the recording booth in the time since. Even so, game actors often go through the ringer to bring their characters to life, whether it’s just the voice work or the performance capture, as well. For example, MindsEye actor Jake Thomas says he trashed his voice while playing the role, due to how much his character screamed and yelled.

Though Apostolides’ story is a bit on the extreme end, the risk of injuring one’s voice while performing for a video game is unfortunately high. Other actors have also raised concerns about the toll that voice-acting video game characters can cause. One small survey of voice actors in 2022 indicated that 73% felt that video games called for extreme vocal work, while 20% experienced difficulty recovering after performing for games. It can be very difficult work, and it’s lucky that the incident Apostolides went through didn’t leave him with permanent injury.