Leon Kennedy Voice Actor Reveals How Metallica and Nirvana Shaped His Resident Evil Performances

Nick Apostolides, the voice actor behind Leon Kennedy in the Resident Evil Remake series, has shared the surprising music that helped him bring the character to life in different games. In a Cameo video recorded for a fan in July 2026, Apostolides revealed he listened to a lot of metal and grunge while filming, associating each game with a specific band: Nirvana for Resident Evil 2, Alice in Chains for Resident Evil 4, and classic Metallica for the upcoming Resident Evil Requiem.

“I actually take a lot of deep inspiration in my acting through music to get into the right mindset,” he explained. For Leon, that meant embracing the Seattle Sound. While recording for Resident Evil 2, Apostolides didn't “think too much about it” but listened to plenty of Nirvana, whose “grunge, rock energy was good for younger Leon.” For Resident Evil 4, he described Alice in Chains as a “huge” inspiration, specifically naming songs like “Them Bones” and “Would,” as well as tracks from later albums such as “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here.”

Resident Evil Requiem features the oldest version of Leon yet, and Apostolides turned to “classic, 1980s Metallica” to capture that older, grittier vibe. “That super heavy, fast, lockstep rhythms and stuff like that. I was using a lot in that song ‘Orion.’ That is my favorite song of all time,” he said. “It’s just such a heavy riff, and there’s so much behind that song about why they wrote it, how they wrote it. I just love it.”

Fans have been buzzing about this revelation, which follows another recent tidbit from Apostolides: earlier this month, he revealed that Capcom cut what would have been his “favorite” line in Requiem—a corny one-liner, naturally.