I still remember the comments on the Wesker trailer (since deleted from YouTube - my guess is because of the Aliens music that was used), and the fan reaction to my Wesker was pretty harsh. Nerd rage about my "dumbo ears" and how I looked like "Alfalfa" (I don't see it) was pretty much all there was. Based on the Doom episode, featuring a chubby, dumb-as-rocks Doctor Doom, I wasn't sure what people expected. On the other hand, I grew up with my appearance and learned to roll with the punches a long time ago. I laughed it off like an adult.
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| An adult orangutan. What did you think I meant? |
When the episode came out, there were still haters, but I think people then remembered that ASSIST ME! was a parody and the characters were supposed to be twisted. My portrayal of Wesker as an alcoholic with fatherhood issues and, yet, a God-complex was pretty well received. There were of course, still haters, but that's the internet for you.
Remember that I didn't even fathom the popularity or the heated nature of the FGC yet. It was all new to me. Wesker's episode ran three videos long, and I think I had won most people over by the third.
The rest of season 1 came and went quickly. I wasn't involved at all with the X-23 episode, but received an honorable mention (she's at Max's house hunting for Wesker, after all). Max, Simmons and I had talked with Spif about appearing as Jill, and we all arranged a time to do it. As Max wrote the script, he again asked me to look it over for Resident Evil lore fine-tuning. As I recall, his first draft featured Wesker returning to have Jill trained - but this Wesker was a clone (the original had been killed by Doom in the finale of the Wesker episode). I was outright against a Wesker clone. After Wesker was killed in Resident Evil 5, butthurt fans everywhere who couldn't accept it were like "durr, maybe there will be a clone!"
I hated those days. In my mind, Wesker cheats death all the time. When he dies for real - it's for real. No clones. No comic book bullshit. If you wanna bring him back, just bring him back. But don't make him a clone. Max was cool with this request, and Wesker came back with literally no explanation. Just as it should be.
It took another full weekend to film the Jill episode. On my first weekend (filming Wesker) the crew behind the camera had only included Andrew and Dan (Andrew operated the camera, adjusted lights) and Dan (operated sound, wiped sweat off my face). Max's lovely wife Jessica stepped in now and then to feed us and fan us with a balancing board. When we shot Jill, we had everybody from before plus Lyndsey (makeup) and Matt Welzenbach (not Simmons), the script supervisor. The whole thing felt so much different with just a couple more bodies crammed into the room.
We also had visits from several friends that weekend. No idea why. It was busy.
Notably, the pants of my Wesker costume split from the bottom of the fly up to the middle of the butt because one of the lights nearly fell on Welzenbach's crotch and I lunged to catch it just in time. Welzenbach's crotch was saved, my pants were ripped (allowing for a blessed breeze). It was a win-win.
As I recall, we finished filming without any other real difficulties. UMvC3 was on the horizon and the show was picking up popularity as people figured out what it was and Max found his groove for the balance between story and gameplay. He released the Jill episode just in time to be the season 1 finale.
The next time we got together, we would be working for CAPCOM...
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