Resident Evil: Requiem, the latest entry in Capcom’s iconic zombie series, is out and already selling like hot cakes within the first week of its release. Based on temperature checks of fans sharing clips online, the game is a perfect mix of the series’ desperate, over-the-top action and viscerally unnerving horror. In short, it’s the best of both worlds.
While series mainstay Leon Kennedy clears the room like John Wick, as the fabric of his shirt holds on for dear life to his muscles, the other half of Requiem‘s winning formula that fans are equally enamored with is its second playable character, Grace Ashcroft. In contrast to the series’ ensemble of competent action heroes, Grace is more like us common folk: a bumbling scaredy-cat born to whimsy and forced to lock in and face the horrors straight on.
In a short period of time, players have already embraced Grace as one of their favorite characters in the series’ 30-year history. Key among their praise (naturally in the form of memes) is how her shaky grip on a gun twice her size, habit of tripping mid-sprint into well-lit rooms that were safe just moments before, perpetually perturbed facial expressions, and her remarkable voice acting crank up the game’s horror to 11, whether you’re playing in first or third person. Hell, it even scared the likes of Ice-T.
If anything, her panic-driven playstyle perfectly complements Leon’s quippy, motorcycle-riding, super-kick-and-axe-swinging action-movie power fantasy, serving as a mirror of how players would actually look if they were dropped into the game. We spoke with Grace’s voice and motion-capture actor Angela Sant’Albano about how she brought Requiem‘s deeply relatable character to life.
© Capcom
While Sant’Albano has worked across film and TV, most recently on HBO’s Industry, Requiem marks her first foray into video games. What’s more, it sees her take center stage for the first time as the FBI agent in over her head. What’s spelled for the worst time in Grace’s life is actually a role Sant’Albano has been dying to play.
“I’d always wanted to work in the horror space just because I thought it’s such a challenge for an actor, the stakes are always so incredibly high. When Resident Evil came my way—I’ve known it to have such a huge cultural impact—I couldn’t possibly turn it away,” Sant’Albano said.
Grace may carry the lineage of Resident Evil Outbreak‘s Alyssa Ashcroft as her adoptive daughter, giving her a connection to the series’ newer canon that Resident Evil 7‘s Ethan Winters never had, but Sant’Albano saw that legacy less as a template and more as permission to break the mold. Instead of echoing the franchise’s long line of strong female characters, she relished the chance to build an entirely different kind of protagonist who was a great departure from past series heroines.
“When I first got her bio, I thought, ‘You know what, she’s just an everyday civilian thrown into an incredibly terrifying situation.’ We all want to believe that we would be the hero who would stand up and fight, grab the gun, and shoot the villain, but the reality is that’s not real life. Sometimes, you would run and you would hide in a corner and scream, and then you would have moments of great courage,” Sant’Albano said. “She’s a very accurate portrayal of real human moments of extreme courage and moments of cowardice.”
While filming as Grace’s motion capture for the better part of a year and a half, Sant’Albano says her character starts out as a very introverted woman who’s uneasy around people. But her unwitting hero’s journey forces her to face her past trauma as she grows more into herself.
“Without giving too much away, she ends up caring for people in a very deeply human way,” she said. “I think she’s very resilient, and I think her vulnerability makes her victories a lot more meaningful because she’s not always just ready to fight. When she does have a moment of courage, it makes the payoff greater.”
© Capcom
Although Grace served as Sant’Albano’s first-ever video game role, she is no stranger to the hobby. Almost true to form with her character, the variety of games she grew up playing is a far cry from the frights Resident Evil is wont to dish out. Instead of dealing with Lickers, punching giant boulders, and running from Mr. X, she was obsessed with her Nintendo, playing games like Super Mario Bros. and forgotten gems like Nintendogs.
However, after landing the role as Grace, Sant’Albano upped her game by dipping into titles like Indiana Jones and Skyrim. But to prepare for Requiem, Sant’Albano specifically dove into playing Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 7—honestly, two of the best games she could’ve picked up to match Requiem‘s tone.
© Capcom
As far as her touchstones of horror go, Sant’Albanos says she loves Jordan Peele‘s brand of psychological horror. But when it came to studying up for the game, she rewatched The Silence of the Lambs in part because Anthony Hopkins is one of her all-time favorite actors and because Requiem‘s big bad, Victor Gideon, played by Antony Byrne, has a similar vibe to Hannibal Lecter.
“It sounds weird, but I watched some of the Saw films, which are terrifying,” Sant’Albanos added. “I think I was just trying to get that feeling in my body of what that high impact, very quick, fright factor is.”
mama a girl behind you #ResidentEvilRequiem #GraceAhscroft pic.twitter.com/MkGsgY54Qm
— YMR @ RE9 (@_ymr18) February 27, 2026
Sant’Albano admits that no amount of prep could have fully prepared her for how both liberating and overwhelming it was to performance-capture Grace. The hardest part, she says, was embodying Grace’s frantic, fight-or-flight physicality. As a younger actor, Sant’Albano says she is often cast in roles closer to herself, so she rarely gets the chance to play someone this far removed from her. Grace, however, pushed her into a new kind of physical storytelling—especially in a mocap setting, where worrying about velcro getting stuck to everything and everyone, on top of how extra tight the helmet she wore clung to her head, added more things for her to worry about on top of acting out scenes where Grace was in perpetual distress.
“I was a little bit frazzled, and our wonderful performance capture director Kate Saxon, said, ‘Think of it as doing performing theater in the round, so you have that real sense of freedom and space, but you’ve got the intimacy of TV and film because the audience (or the player) is right there with you,’” she said. “Imaginarium Studios were also amazing at making all the kit melt away, and then I could focus on my own performance.”
Resident Evil 9 Requiem Motion Capture Behind the scenes pic.twitter.com/KHW1fizFSd
— NikTek (@NikTek) March 1, 2026
After the first day on set, Sant’Albano said that embodying Grace’s physicality had become second nature to her. She also said it was “really good fun” when the crew jumped in and “got their hands dirty” by pretending to be zombies to heighten the horror of her performance.
“We would turn off the lights to create that kind of creeping horror feel for some of the scenes,” she said. “People were really down to bring [Requiem] to life as best as they possibly could, and I’m proud of what we achieved. I think we got there.”
We can tell 😭 that voice acting is generational! https://t.co/9E17iu5yTQ pic.twitter.com/wNFaVEcprS
— Yash (@Yasshbhardwajj) March 3, 2026
While Sant’Albano has always enjoyed performing on stage, film, and TV, playing Grace flipped a switch for her. Now, she wants in on more action, horror, and mocap. Whether she’ll reprise her role as Grace in a future Resident Evil game or not, she won’t say. But one thing’s clear: she’s every bit as smitten with Requiem‘s little hero that could as fans who’ve adopted her almost overnight.
“She’s made me tap into a much softer side of myself. I’m half-Italian and speak Spanish, so I’ve played different cultures and have brought out different sides of myself in different performances,” she said. “But Grace is the softest character that I’ve played and the character I’ve probably felt for the most, in terms of wanting to hold her tight, give her a hug, put her in my pocket, and help her. It was very rewarding to have to do such emotional and fearful scene work, like screaming and thinking you’re gonna be murdered or who knows what. Knowing ‘I can get there’ felt very rewarding.”
Resident Evil: Requiem is available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
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