'Resident Evil' star Stephanie Panisello chooses self-empowerment over criticism crafting Claire Redfield

Stephanie Panisello, the voice of Claire Redfield in the Resident Evil franchise, moves the fan-favourite character into a place of more "reassurance" in Resident Evil: Death Island.

But after voicing Claire for many iterations of her story, Panisello had to find the balance between growing and expanding the character, and managing expectations from fans who loved Claire even before Panisello joined the franchise.

"As far as Resident Evil 2 goes, I feel like that was the first time that, for new fans, they got to be introduced to her," Panisello told Yahoo Canada during an interview in Toronto in the first week of July. "So it was interesting because it was kind of playing that dance between OG fans and new fans, and taking someone very iconic and then making her completely my own."

"A big difference between my version and the old version was she cusses like a sailor, but I think it made sense to the character because she's a 19-year-old and it is the end of the world, and her brother trained her, and she's already packing a gun and riding a motorcycle. It just felt very natural to her. That was really a fun origin for me because you just see her discovery."

Moving into Infinite Darkness, Panisello highlighted that Claire was more "secure" in herself.

"She's no longer just surviving," Panisello said. "It's her inquisitive side that's kind of coming out. Now it's her trying to figure out things. ... But we still obviously have her scrappy side."

Finally going into Death Island, Claire continues to develop, but she's still very much the same Claire Resident Evil fans fell in love with.

"We're still keeping the essence of Claire, because Claire's got a good heart, she's a total bada—, that doesn't go away. We just see more certainty and more reassurance," Panisello said.

"That's been a really fun journey for me to say like, 'OK where is she in the timeline? Where she in between games too, and what has occurred and where are we taking her?' So it's honestly such a treat as an actor to get that long of a lifespan for a character."

'I learned very quickly: Don't read comments'

While Panisello completely shines voicing Claire, she has faced her share of criticism along the way. The actor revealed that initially, she did feel the pressure to live up to fan expectation for Claire, recalling the release of the first trailer that included her iteration of Claire, which included a "cheesy" one-liner. The response wasn't great.

"I read the comments and people were like, 'I don't know about this Claire,'" Panisello recalled. "It doesn't feel good and I was like, 'wait a minute, it was one line.'"

"I learned very quickly, don't read comments, or don't take them to heart. It's not a big deal. Sometimes it's trolling and a lot of times it's positive. ... I learned to just care so much that I didn't care. ... I know that I'm doing a great job and that's going to show through."

But as time progressed, Panisello felt increasingly supported to voice her thoughts and opinions on Claire, including her swearing, particularly where the character says, "goodbye f-cker" in Resident Evil 2.

"Capcom was like, 'oh, we don't know about this line, we don't know if fans are going to like it,' ... and I was like, 'well, then we'll get new fans,'" Panisello revealed.

"I said, 'look think about it. She's 19 years-old. It's the end of the world, she's going to say something.' And I'm so glad that they trusted me on it and I'm so glad that I had the ability to say, it's OK. It's not about catering to what people already know, it's about being honest about it."

For a lot of women in particular, Claire represents the woman we've always wanted to see in the gaming world.

"One of the things that you notice in this game is she's never once sexualized," Panisello said. "No angles of it, no anything."

"Not to say that there can't be sexy characters and there are some that are, and that's one of their strengths, but if you watch the game there's not any of that, and that was super exciting for me. I feel like we were just starting to see strong female characters, the industry was changing. ... I realized that I could have some input in how that was going to be conveyed and how that was going to come out, and I'm so glad that it was listened to and heard."

'I wanted to learn to fail gracefully'

To date, Panisello has accumulated an impressive body of work, even aside from the Resident Evil franchise, including taking on the voice of Betty Ross in Marvel's What If...?, but moving forward, the actor does believe there could be a shift for her into on-camera work, or possibly even directing.

Interestingly, the actor also tried her hand at standup comedy before she was Claire, something she indicated she perhaps would be interested to try out again.

"I wanted to learn to fail gracefully," Panisello said. "I wanted to learn how to fail so badly that nothing could affect me, because then I could go into auditions and feel nothing."

Embodying such an iconic gaming character, Panisello has touched a number of people along the way who really identify with Claire. As Panisello recalled, she was at a convention once and met a boy who was in the hospital for cancer treatment. He had asked to leave the facility just so he could meet Panisello saying, "[Claire] just keeps me going" and "that game keeps me going."

It's those touching moments that really stand out for Panisello, who wants to continue to not only be an advocate for really human characters in entertainment, but to support people's self-empowerment.

"I would like to help all those people that are excited about things that I do and empower them to be able to do that in a way that's very ... human, and get to the root of things so that they can pursue the stuff that they love," Panisello said.