How a Viral Role in a Video Game Helped This Alum Build a Career
Maggie Robertson ’13 describes how she landed the role of Lady Dimitrescu (or “Lady D”) in the 2021 video game Resident Evil Village and how the experience opened up a world of opportunities.
In the leadup to the May 2021 release of the video game Resident Evil Village, one of its characters went viral among gamers: Lady Dimitrescu (or “Lady D”), a 9-foot-6-inch vampiric matriarch.
Maggie Robertson ’13, who was a theatre major with minors in English and music at Muhlenberg, listened to her gamer friends rave about the character for months. When the game came out, her nondisclosure agreement ended and she could finally tell them: “That’s me.”
Listen to a more extensive interview on the alumni podcast 2400 Chew.
Robertson had no idea what she was getting into when she booked the role. She auditioned shortly after she moved to Los Angeles after graduating from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) with a master’s in classical acting. Months after the initial audition and callback, she learned she got the part and what it was — a performance-capture role for Resident Evil Village.
Now, the majority of her work is performance-capture and voiceover work, much of it for video games; she played Orin the Red in the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired game Baldur’s Gate 3, which came out in August 2023. Robertson feels grateful to have found a niche in the video game space, where almost everyone working on a project is also a gamer and a fan.
Muhlenberg Magazine: For the non-gamers reading this, can you contextualize how big a deal the Resident Evil Village role was?
Maggie Robertson ’13: I like to say that Lady D changed my life in every way. It really did create a career for me overnight. People in the industry know who I am just from that one role … I had a role that the writer wrote with me in mind after Lady D. That’s the pinnacle of what you are striving for as an actor, to make those connections, to have people so inspired by you that they write things for you. I still had to audition, but that was really freaking cool.
MM: What is appealing to you about performance-capture work?
MR: I often characterize my time in “the volume” — that’s what they call the space that you film performance capture in — as kind of a lightning-bolt moment. The second I got into the volume, I felt immediately that this is what I needed to be doing … You don’t have hair, makeup, costume pieces, anything to help you tell this story outside of yourself, your body, your physicality and your access to your own imagination.
MM: How did your time at Muhlenberg shape what you’re doing now?
MR: Muhlenberg was the place where I fell in love with the craft of acting. The professors really encouraged us to get involved in the creative process and find inspiration across multiple disciplines. It’s also where I was first introduced to the beauty of Shakespeare — something that ultimately influenced my decision to pursue a master’s degree in classical acting at LAMDA. My Shakespearean training still heavily influences everything I do as an actor today.
Lady Dimitrescu (or “Lady D”), a 9-foot 6-inch vampiric matriarch
First- and second-grade students at Allentown’s Muhlenberg Elementary School participate in 45-minute classes during the school day taught by Muhlenberg College students interested in dance education.
