15th Anniversary Interview with Richard Waugh. Submit your questions here!

[Mr. Spencer]

Just a heads up, the interview is now live on the main page of Project Umbrella.

Many thanks to Smiley and Enetirnel for taking the time to arrange this, and to Richard himself for answering our questions.

[Guest]

Just a heads up, the interview is now live on the main page of Project Umbrella.

Many thanks to Smiley and Enetirnel for taking the time to arrange this, and to Richard himself for answering our questions.

Started out okay, then just got flat-out weird, boring and kinda creepy. Meh.

[News Bot]

Started out okay, then just got flat-out weird, boring and kinda creepy. Meh.

That much can be expected since the questions are almost all from the community as a whole.

[Mr. Spencer]

Yes, these are questions pitched by the community so that should be all you need to know.

I myself asked why he returned to do RE0 but not REmake, since those two games are in a similar timeframe.

[Beanovsky Durst]

Smiley: Did you have any influence or say in the character or some of the dialogue? What are some of your favorite Wesker lines?

Richard: I seem to remember that it was my suggestion to have Wesker never use contractions. It made him more precise and inhuman. Of course , eventually he actually was inhuman so ,in retrospect , that may have been gilding the Lily. I also remember that there were one or two lines that just struck all of us as odd translations and needed to be smoothed out. The issue was usually redundancy. There was one Wesker/Chris exchange in which Wesker went on and on about "Today you have won but next time we meet I will win and you will lose so losing today will mean nothing when I win..." or something to that effect. It was just clunky and run on. I remember suggesting "Today was your lucky day. Don't expect another." (or something very close) and that made it into the game. I guess that's my favorite line. I'm a narcissist that way.

So actually Waugh created my favorite Wesker line... Interesting stuff there, including the fact that he actually didn't do any work for Umbrella Chronicles. Thanks for the great work guys!

[Smiley]

Yes, these are questions pitched by the community so that should be all you need to know.

I myself asked why he returned to do RE0 but not REmake, since those two games are in a similar timeframe.

From the sound of things based on DC and Waugh's interviews it really stems from where Capcom holds the voice recording. The actors in REmake were done in L.A. while Zero was handled by actors in Canada. This is why Rebecca and Wesker were played by different actors in both games. Waugh was called back since he was the last VA in Canada though. Since Umbrella Chronicles was handled by LA actors (and we can confirm Waugh had no involvement in it) only Peter Jessop was originally asked to return but couldn't do it so DC auditioned at that point and has been used since.

I'm not sure why the casting was switched back and fourth considering games like RE4 and Darkside Chronicles show they could merge actors from both areas. It might be more costly, but this is something to ask Capcom since I doubt the voice actors themselves know anything about it.

Anyway personally it was really fun to work on this interview. I've been a fan of his since Code Veronica (my first dreamcast game) and it was great to learn new things about him as well as delve further into stuff he's said before. I tried my best to incorporate as many questions as I could into such a way that it wasn't as lengthy as it could have been (but it was). I hope the lot of you are as pleased as I was that he took the time to answer all these.

Among his answers; my favorites would have to be the story of the waiter who recognized his voice, his response to the movies and without a doubt those silly off-the-wall questions. Creepy, but hilarious.

And with a little clarity we can finally close the book on the whole "why did they cut his lines in umbrella chronicles?" controversy since he never even worked on umbrella chronicles. But at least he's a good sport about the whole thing.

Paul Anderson's RE movies would at least have a +10 from the gamers if Waugh was cast in them. I think some twitter tweeting from Paul and Milla is in order.

Thanks you guys again for submitting your questions. If and when I do another review you can be sure I'll come to THIA again.

[TheBatMan]

I'm assuming Mr. Waugh memory is fading when he says he did not work on Umbrella Chronicles as that is clearly his voice at the end of this trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f98Ee-4SCgc

[Mr. Spencer]

That's D.C. Douglas.

[TheBatMan]

Is it? That must be the one line where he actually managed to sound like Richard Waugh then.

[Bianca]

Richard: I seem to remember that it was my suggestion to have Wesker never use contractions. It made him more precise and inhuman. Of course , eventually he actually was inhuman so ,in retrospect , that may have been gilding the Lily. I also remember that there were one or two lines that just struck all of us as odd translations and needed to be smoothed out. The issue was usually redundancy. There was one Wesker/Chris exchange in which Wesker went on and on about "Today you have won but next time we meet I will win and you will lose so losing today will mean nothing when I win..." or something to that effect. It was just clunky and run on. I remember suggesting "Today was your lucky day. Don't expect another." (or something very close) and that made it into the game. I guess that's my favorite line. I'm a narcissist that way.

Haha, that actually made me laugh. I kind of wish it had made it into the game.

[Darkmoon]

Can you imagine the amount of piss that would have been taken out of that line? We'd be floating neck deep in urine by now.

[Enetirnel]

Is it? That must be the one line where he actually managed to sound like Richard Waugh then.

To me, that sounds nothing like Richard Waugh but instead D.C. Douglas - the same sort of tone that was used in the cutscene where Wesker is showing Chris & Jill the Tyrant in Umbrella Chronicles, there's a slightly nasally sound to it on top of the accent coming off oddly (he's keeping the accent on, but hasn't changed his pronunciation to the differences with how Waugh actually speaks) which is why it has that weird sound.

There's other differences in the sound, just those are the easiest ones for me to point out by ear.

However, had it actually been Waugh involved then trailers are often known for having other voice actors involved in them (this came from speaking with Ginny McSwain, the casting director for Biohazard/Resident Evil 4, Demento/Haunting Ground and most recently - the Mass Effect series) so it would be unusual for previously cut lines to be reused as essentially that performance would have already been paid for and could have become stock for the company to pull quotes from, or they could have had another VA hired to do a quick recording for promotional usage whilst the actual in-game VAs were recording OR had finished recording and they had decided not to use the dialogue, the sound of characters was still being discussed and the like.

An example of one would be some of the earlier Biohazard 4 trailers where Leon sounds a bit high-pitched to the point where it reminds me of how a friend on YouTube does his mock gay-Dante or gay-Leon voice.

Ginny mentioned they had changed the direction as to how Leon would sound and we got what we heard in the retail version as a result, because Leon came across really sounding FAR too young.

So, yes. Possible, but it isn't Richard Waugh on the trailer (as another note, majority of the VAs they would get to redo lines for trailers or specific dialogue would be from the same region that they've already hired VAs from, or they'd also reuse some sound effects already recorded previously. Such as one of Ashley's screams from RE4 being used in the TGS 2004 trailer for Demento) as he's also said that he has had no involvement whatsoever with it.

[TheBatMan]

You're probably right, I just always thought that particular line sounded different to any of the other dialogue from Wesker in UC for some reason. It just seemed to stand out and sounded a lot like Waugh, particularly reminiscent of his performance in Bio 4.
I guess until reading the recent interview, Waugh's admission that he did the voice acting in UC and was cut and that particular line not being in the final game influenced this feeling.

Oh well...

[Enetirnel]

You're probably right, I just always thought that particular line sounded different to any of the other dialogue from Wesker in UC for some reason. It just seemed to stand out and sounded a lot like Waugh, particularly reminiscent of his performance in Bio 4.
I guess until reading the recent interview, Waugh's admission that he did the voice acting in UC and was cut and that particular line not being in the final game influenced this feeling.

Oh well...

Well, there is a decent amount of cut dialogue within the games but there's also specific ones that are used purely for marketing/promotional purposes that weren't going to be included in the game at all.

Within CODE: Veronica's files you can find some cut lines tucked away in the audio files, or even in Gun Survivor 2 - CODE: Veronica, they used Waugh's recordings for the Battle Mode Wesker for Rodrigo in it when you play as the character but there's also particular audio that was for specific ads of the game.

So there can be some issues due to mis-communication within interviews, which is why Smiley's interview had questions that were rather specific and had details for Waugh to extend on to get that specific response.

I keep that in mind when looking at early footage of games, more-so considering that I've had to double-check with the casting director for the proper credits because characters had different sounds between that and the final result.

[Archelon]

There was a ton of unused dialogue for Resident Evil 5 that only appeared in the trailers. The first two, in particular.