Resident Evil 4 remake voice actor leaves Instagram after harassment
Lily Gao, the voice actor who portrayed covert operative Ada Wong in Resident Evil 4 remake, has had to essentially leave Instagram after her account was flooded with harassment over her performance in the role. Gao had previously portrayed Ada Wong in Resident Evil: Return to Raccoon City, and returned to provide the voice of the character in the recently released remake.
Gao had posted excitedly on her Instagram account about her voicing of the role, proud of her portrayal and the work she’d done on the game. Unfortunately, because the internet is filled with terrible people, those posts along with others unrelated to Resident Evil were flooded with hate and harassment.
The main point of contention for those commenting seems to be the tone of her performance, which is a lot more reserved and less provocative than in the original game. Given the shift in tone overall for the remake, however, the changes for Ada’s dialogue and delivery make sense, and serve to make the character feel much more grounded and less like a caricature.
Still, even if some weren’t a fan of the portrayal, that’s hardly Gao’s fault. Any change to the delivery of the lines and the overall tone of the character would have been the result of writing and direction, rather than the voice actors themselves.
That didn’t stop the harassment, though. Commenters on Instagram attacked Gao for a performance they called “terrible”, with one even saying she “ruined the remake”. Others took issue with Ada being less “seductive”, which again has absolutely nothing to do with Gao’s performance, but anonymous internet harassers aren’t exactly known for their ability to think and reason.
As a result of the harassment, Gao has turned off comments on her entire Instagram page, and removed all but one post, including all of her posts about Resident Evil. Gao doesn’t maintain any other social media accounts, and has not publicly made any statements about the harassment or the removal of her Instagram posts.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time this has happened, and it’s unlikely to be the last. Laura Bailey, the voice actor for Abby in The Last of Us Part 2, was also relentlessly harassed following the release of the game, largely due to the actions of her character in the game rather than anything she herself did.
At the time, the official Naughty Dog Twitter account, along with key figures like Neil Druckmann, posted in condemnation of the abuse. Neither the Capcom or the Resident Evil Twitter account have done the same here, but it’s still early days.
