As the Resident Evil movies reach their climax with The Final Chapter, the action returns to Raccoon City for a final battle with Wesker and the forces of the Umbrella Corporation. Eoin Macken plays Doc, a new addition to the franchise, who is leading a band of survivors in Raccoon City alongside Claire Redfield.
Screen Rant spoke with Macken at the press day for The Final Chapter about his time as a kid playing the original Resident Evil video game, how Doc fits into the franchise, and his hardest scene to shoot.
So, this is the final chapter of Resident Evil. How familiar were you with the video games, or the film franchise in general before coming into this?
Eoin Macken: To be honest, I’ve watched all the films, and I used to play the games as a kid.
Those games used to scare the s**t out of me.
Eoin Macken: Dude, I used to go across to my buddy’s house, he lived—in American terms—I guess like a couple of blocks away. And I’d go over there and we’d start playing I guess the very first game, and you’d be going through that bloody house, and you just don’t wanna go through the next doors cause you just know what’s gonna happen, and it was horrific. And then the music, it was the music from the first one that just -
It would build.
Eoin Macken: Dude. And then I’d have to walk home. And so I used to hate that, I used to hate it. So yeah, Resident Evil was - it's always had something in my belly.
Tell me a little bit about Doc and where we find him when Final Chapter kicks off.
Eoin Macken: Well Final Chapter for Doc, it goes back to Raccoon City, and there’s just a small group of rebel survivors who are just getting by, and they’re trying to grow corn and not kill each other. And Doc is sort of the leader of this group, just about keeping all these guys together, and himself and Claire Redfield have got a little bit of a thing. And then Alice comes in and just messes everything up.
This film franchise is known for its big action set-pieces and its stunts, the stunts are amazing. How much training did you have to do for this film?
Eoin Macken: We do quite a bit. We had a really cool [fight coordinator], Nathan Barris from South Africa, who oversaw everything, and he was on it. And we had some really cool guys doing it. But the stunts, man, yeah we spent quite a bit of time rehearsing them, cause they were pretty intense, you know? And when you’re doing them there’s just cameras going everywhere, and it’s just huge. It was nuts. But it was really, really awesome to be apart of, when you’re in this massive thing doing these stunts, and they’re doing the explosion, you gotta be blown across the—thrown across the tarmac.
It seems like a lot of training goes into that.
Eoin Macken: It was fun, yeah.
Coming into an established franchise, how was that? And also, did you get any advice from your fellow cast members or anything like that?
Eoin Macken: I mean, yeah, myself and Ali [Larter] had dinner a couple of times when we were in South Africa and we would just talk about it, but to be honest with you I’d already spoken to Paul [W.S. Anderson], myself and Paul had dinner, and I was talking to Milla [Jovovich] and we talked through what the movie is and what it should be and then it’s just, “let’s just do this.” Paul and Milla just, they know what they’re doing and it just creates this great atmosphere where it’s nuts, but everything’s just calm and having fun.
With that being said—you talked about stunts earlier—what was the hardest scene for you, most difficult scene to shoot?
Eoin Macken: There’s a scene where Ruby Rose is under a bit of pressure and duress, shall we say, and there’s this big giant fan -
I was gonna ask about that scene, because it was quite impressive to watch.
Eoin Macken: It was nuts doing that scene. I mean she was on these wires. But, we were being—this fan is blowing stuff into your face for two days, you can’t hear anything, it’s cold; there was like baboons outside, we weren’t sure if they were coming in or not; you have to kind of grab onto these things and you’re doing that for hours, and that was exhausting, man.
It seemed it. Now you’ve done Resident Evil, it seems like you were a gamer growing up; what other video game franchises—or even superhero franchises—would you like to be a part of?
Eoin Macken: Dude, you’re gonna put me on the spot like that. The Last of Us I feel like could be interesting. That one could be quite dope. Command & Conquer could be fun.
I really like The Last of Us, that’s a great game.
Eoin Macken: Yeah, that’s an interesting one. If you could do Mario Kart as a really cool film I’d do that.
It’s like Fast and the Furious, right?
Eoin Macken: Yeah, Fast and the Furious the Mario Kart version, right?
