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Maggie Robertson has said she would accept any opportunity from Capcom to reprise her breakout role as Lady Dimitrescu in the Resident Evil series, calling the character her “firstborn.”
Lady Dimitrescu, the towering face of Capcom’s phenomenally successful 2021 game, Resident Evil Village, was Robertson’s first video game role, and it changed her life forever.
Speaking to IGN at gamescom while promoting her latest video game gig — the sultry and scheming Tasha in upcoming Dungeons & Dragons game Warlock, Robertson said the last five years had been a surreal experience.
“That game, that character changed my life in every way,” she said. “There's no aspect of my life that has not been touched by that character. That was the very first game I ever did. And I had just done my graduate degree. I just came from a drama program. I lived the Hollywood dream in a surreal way. So I just graduated, moved to LA January 2019 and was throwing paint at the wall. I didn't have an agent. I was just self-submitting for things, seeing what stuck. I moved out here to pursue on-camera predominantly, but then this breakdown happened across my path and it was a day where I was just feeling like I might as well try something new. F**k it. Let's go for it. And it turned out to be this.”
Robertson said she had no idea which game or character she was auditioning for when she went in for Lady Dimitrescu, due to the secrecy that surrounds the video game industry, and even afterwards, could never have predicted the impact it would have.
“Video games also are always under NDA. So everything about the breakdown, the character names, the sides that I auditioned with, all of that was fake,” she said. “I had no idea what I was even auditioning for. I had no idea of the scope of what video games could offer me in terms of a career, in terms of acting, in terms of the roles that I would have access to.”
Such was the online popularity of Lady Dimitrescu following the character’s reveal ahead of Resident Evil Village’s release, that Capcom thrust her into the forefront of the game’s marketing. Lady Dimitrescu appeared on billboard advertising, in viral social media posts, and was in pretty much every Resident Evil Village trailer as Capcom doubled down on the vociferous fandom that emerged around the character.
Fast forward five years, and Robertson has acted in everything from Baldur’s Gate 3 (Orin the Red), to Fortnite (DJ PJ). In Warlock, Robertson plays another Dungeons & Dragons villain, Tasha, patron to the playable character. Such is Robertson’s fame within the video game industry that she appeared on-stage at Opening Night Live last month to introduce Warlock gameplay. And there are more video game roles to come.
“Ultimately, I'm so grateful for it because I think my type with theater, my type with on-camera, the roles that I am so right for are roles that are waiting for me when I am 50 and 60 years old,” she continued. “And I didn't have access to those at the time that I was entering the industry. And being able to become a part of this industry helped me have access to those roles now. And I didn't have to wait. I didn't have to be limited by the way that I looked. Again, it's like, if you imagine yourself, if you can imagine it, you can be it. And I find that so liberating.
“But that is the Hollywood dream. That is what they sell you, is that you never know when your big break is going to happen. You never know what opportunity is going to be your next big break. And that happened to me. I just said yes on a random thing.”
The big question for Resident Evil fans is whether Lady Dimitrescu might appear in another game in the series, or perhaps in an animation or maybe even in live-action. Capcom has yet to say either way, but Robertson would jump at the chance.
“Oh, of course!” she said. “A hundred times, yes. She's my firstborn. So anytime they call, I will say happy days.”
For now, though, the focus is on Warlock and her character, Tasha. "What I like most about Tasha is that she's neither good nor evil," Robertson said. "She's complex in that way. She can go either way depending on the day. I think that gives you a lot of fun to play with. She's so charming and charismatic, but also cunning, and is ultimately looking after number one, which is herself. And she'll help you for sure, but there's always something in it for her if she decides to help you. And you don't always know what that is. So I found her to be a nicely complex character. I always like getting to work on those."
Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images.
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