Resident Evil fans are a determined bunch. Since the release of the original Resident Evil in 1996, they have been hard at work trying to find out all they could about its cheesy yet endearing FMV opening, which has included identifying the actors chosen to portray the individual members of S.T.A.R.S.
In the past, members of the game’s community were able to identify and interview the actors who starred as Chris Redfield, Albert Wesker, Barry Burton, and Rebecca Chambers, and later made contact with the actress who portrayed Jill Valentine (who has, unfortunately, declined to share their experience publicly so far). But there has always been one last person that nobody could identify: the actor who portrayed the bandana-wearing, firearms specialist Joseph who gets eaten by a pack of dogs in the game’s intro.
As with all of the other characters, the only clue fans had was a first name, with the credits suggesting that the character had been played by someone named Jason. For years, fans have been reaching out to various potential Jasons online, in the hopes of finding the right person and asking them some questions, with one potential candidate that emerged being the American businessman living in Japan named Jason Durkee.
Individuals, including the Resident Evil superfan @predatorfanboy reached out to Durkee 5 years ago to try and confirm whether he remembers being involved in the production but never heard anything back. But it appears that three years ago, Durkee actually validated these suspicions elsewhere in a podcast that was recently unearthed online by fans (we’re still trying to locate the person who originally dug this up).
In the June 2021 episode of the International Business Podcast, Durkee appeared as a guest, speaking about the workplace consulting firm Idea Development, which he is the president of, but started by talking about some of the side jobs he did before settling on his true career. And it was during this section, which he let slip the confirmation, stating the following about his involvement in the project:
“I did a ton of side jobs and this is where a lot of my experience came from. Some of them were just silly. Like, you know, for the old Resident Evil game which became a huge hit — Biohazard, right? I was in the video clip and I got eaten by a dog. I was screaming and blood was going everywhere.”
With this new (?) discovery, it now means that all the actors who appeared in the live-action footage have finally been identified, which means that fans can now stop searching through obscure Japanese commercials and advertisements for potential clues in order to identify them.
Go on.... treat yourself to a new game.
1 Comment
Wow, this is such a cool find! It’s wild to think that after all these years, the last actor from the original Resident Evil has finally been identified. Joseph Frost’s character was such a memorable part of that cheesy intro, and it’s awesome that fans kept digging to uncover this mystery. Big shoutout to the community for their persistence! Now that all the actors are known, it feels like a little piece of gaming history has been wrapped up. Can’t wait to see what other secrets the Resident Evil universe might still hold!