Fans were treated to a final glimpse of the late Lance Reddick’s performance in the recently concluded Disney+ series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Reddick played the all-powerful Greek god Zeus in the series, a role that came effortlessly to the actor. However, one Netflix project proved truly challenging for the John Wick actor as he had to play four characters with distinct personalities in the series.
The Netflix series in question is the video game-based series, Resident Evil, which, unfortunately, was canceled after its eight-episode run. Despite dethroning Stranger Things as Netflix’s No. 1 show at one point, the series faced issues in its screenplay, leading to a loss of appeal.
How Did Lance Reddick Play 4 Different Roles In Resident Evil?
One of the major issues with Netflix’s Resident Evil was the split timeline, exploring events in a post-apocalyptic 2036 and a pre-apocalyptic 2022. Lance Reddick played the main character, Albert Wesker, who gave himself superhuman abilities and secretly created three clones. Interestingly, each clone had distinct personalities, different from the others as well as the original character.
Lance Reddick explained his four characters, Albert, Al, Bert, and Alby, in an interview with Syfy in 2022. Reddick highlighted the distinct personality types of each clone. Albert “Al” Wesker was supposed to be the oldest and the hyper-responsible one among the three. Bert was the youngest and a slob. Alby, the middle one, was the one who made peace between the three. Reddick shared with Syfy:
“It’s Albert’s [Al’s] story. But once Bert came in, he was almost such a different character that I felt I had to find him so he wasn’t a spin-off of Albert. In terms of personality types, if Albert is the oldest — the hyper-responsible one — and Bert’s the youngest who is kind of a slob, ‘whatever man, I’ll get to it,’ Alby is the middle one who just wants everybody to make peace. So, that’s how I approached the three of them.”
The Fringe actor shared that Alby was the most challenging role among the three, despite being the least prominent. Alby was quickly killed off by the original Albert Wesker in the series. Reddick shared about playing Alby, “In some ways, even though he was the least prominent of the characters and he was only in one scene, he was the hardest character for me to define was Alby.”
At the beginning of the series, fans of the video game mostly get to see Al, who is a father to two teenage girls. Reddick admitted that he was not aware of Wesker from the video games prior to taking the role. However, he identified that the original Albert Wesker, the one who created the clones in the series, was the character from the games.
Lance Reddick Explains Playing A Three Dimensional Villain Among The 4 Roles
Playing the original Albert Wesker was again a challenge for Lance Reddick since the character was made iconic from the games. Wesker was first introduced in games in the 1996 original version of Resident Evil. He was one of the main antagonists in the game. Reddick shared that the biggest challenge was not to make this iconic character a two-dimensional villain. Reddick explained the character as hyper-alpha and a pure psychopath. The Bosch actor explained to Syfy:
“What was hard about that character is that, because he’s so iconic and such a particular type of thing, the biggest challenge there was to make him three-dimensional and not a two-dimensional mustache-twirling villain. [He is] so hyper-alpha and almost a pure psychopath with no conscience.”
While Reddick stood out with his exceptional performance, the same cannot be said for the series. The series failed to make an impact due to its confusing time jumps. Rotten Tomatoes gave the series a 53% approval rating, with the website consensus noting, “This zombie serial could still use more brains.” The series also received criticism from the fans of the video games.
Resident Evil is now available for streaming on Netflix. Fans of Lance Reddick can watch his final screen appearance in the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, now streaming on Disney+.
