William Birkin
William Birkin is a
fictional character in the
Resident Evil series. He is a top
virologist working for the
Umbrella Corporation and is responsible for the discovery of the
G-Virus and development of the G-Virus project. He is also the husband of
Annette Birkin and the father of
Sherry Birkin. His involvement in the G-Virus project serves as a catalyst for the events of
Resident Evil 2. He also has a supporting role in the prequel,
Resident Evil 0, where he is involved in the events of the game from behind the scenes. His voice was provided by
Diego Matamoros in
Resident Evil 2 and by an unattributed actor in
Resident Evil 0.
Birkin joined the Umbrella Corporation in
1977 at the young age of 15. He was placed at the Umbrella Management Training Facility under
James Marcus. There, he became a close acquaintance and rival of fellow researcher
Albert Wesker, as they were both considered to be Marcus' top apprentices. They were involved in the development of the
T-Virus project, until the facility was closed down in
1978.
Afterwards, he and Wesker were transferred to the
Arklay Research Facility on
July 31 1978, where they continued their T-Virus research and were made chief researchers of the facility. Birkin was proud of being the youngest researcher ever to work for Umbrella, until the arrival of
Alexia Ashford, who was assigned to be chief researcher of Umbrella's Antarctic facility at the age of 10 in
1981. Although she worked in a different facility, Birkin became jealous of her, especially due to all the praise she was receiving from his co-workers. He became completely focused on his work and research, until the announcement of Alexia's death in
1983. Despite his rivarly with Alexia, his research yielded no results until he created the
Hunter Bio-Organic Weapon (B.O.W.) around the mid-
1980s.
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The Birkin family. From left to right: William, Sherry and Annette. |
He was "promoted" in
1988 to lead the T-Virus project (and completed the development of the
Tyrant) after he and Wesker assassinated their former mentor, Marcus. By this time, Birkin was already married to his assistant,
Annette and the marriage had already produced a daughter named
Sherry (born in
1986). When he and Wesker were conducting an experiment with the NE-a parasite (the prototype of the
Nemesis project), they used a female specimen (
Lisa Trevor) as a guinea pig. Lisa was the only test subject to fully accept the parasite. Noticing her strange survival rate, Birkin examined her body structure and discovered that the variation of the
Progenitor Virus that was injected into her in
1967 had absorbed all the mutagenic organisms that she had been implanted with since then and mutated into a new virus, which Birkin named the
G-Virus.
He received approval from Umbrella's president,
Ozwell E. Spencer, to initiate the G-Virus Project. In
1993, Birkin and his wife were transferred to an Underground Research Facility established specifically for the project. Birkin also bribed the chief of the
Raccoon Police Department, Brian Irons, to cover up the project, using his wife as the "middle man".
He completed his development of the G-Virus in September of
1998 and planned on using his final research in order to be promoted into Umbrella's executive board. However, he began to disagree with his superiors and planned on keeping his research to himself and sell it to the U.S. Government. He requested to have the Military intervene and retrieve him. However, the team that was sent never came and the Umbrella Special Forces Unit Alpha Team (led by
HUNK, under orders from Christine Henri and Spencer) came to steal his work. He was shot by the soldiers and left for dead. Refusing to have his work stolen, he injected himself with a sample of the G-Virus and turned into the mutated creature known as
G.
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The first phase of William Birkin's transformation into the mutant classified as "G". In this form, he has an enlarged right arm with an eye on its shoulder. |
After his mutation into G, Birkin went after the USFU team that stole his samples and chased them into the sewers. The team was taken by surprise at the sight of the mutated Birkin and were not prepared to handle the creature. During the ensuing onslaught, several vials containing the T-Virus broke out from the containers and were ingested by rats, which served as the cause of the zombie outbreak in Raccoon City. Of the USFU team that Birkin fought, only
HUNK survived.
Several days later, on
September 29th, Birkin wandered around the RPD Precinct and encountered some of the surviving civilians, his daughter among them. Looking for a host to propagate his species, he implanted his
embryos into a few victims (
which varies, depending on the scenario the player is playing). However, only hosts with the same DNA structure were capable of accepting his embryos (
in the "Claire A/Leon B" scenario, he is successful in implanting an embryo into Sherry).
Leon and
Claire encountered G during their escape from the RPD Precinct. He mutated into five different forms while fighting them. In his first form, Birkin retained most of his human appearance, with the most notable difference being his enlarged right arm (with an eye on its shoulder) and a deranged mind that relies entirely on instincts (see image). In his following mutation, he grew a new head (the old one forming part of his left chest) and grew claws from his right hand. By his third transformation, any semblance of a human being was completely gone, with his rest of body having mutated along with his arm. In this form, he grew two additional arms, with his older arms forming part of his back, like wings. After sustaining enough damage from his battles with Leon and Claire, he transformed into his next form, in which he grew a new mouth from his chest and started walking on all fours. This form required G to constantly feed on other creatures, which resulted in his fifth and (as far as known) final mutation, in which he became a malleable lump of flesh with tentacles.
During all of these mutations, he chased after Leon and Claire from the sewers to the underground research facility and eventually, to an escape train, which Leon and Claire were riding. His presence in the train caused an Anti-Biohazard Detonating Mechanism to be activated. Leon, Claire and Sherry managed to stop the train and escape while G was inside. The train was destroyed, taking what was once William Birkin with it. Sometime after they left the site, Albert Wesker (now working for "The Organization") managed to salvage what was left of Birkin as a specimen.
In the first
Resident Evil film, William Birkin makes an uncredited
cameo appearance as the head of the
Nemesis project and is portrayed by actor
Jason Isaacs (who was also the film's narrator).
According to a
commentary by
Paul W.S. Anderson, Isaacs was planned to reprise this role in the sequel
Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but left the project for undisclosed reasons. An original character named
Dr. Sam Isaacs (played by
Iain Glen and named after the actor who played Birkin in the first film) was created to fulfill Birkin's role in the sequel.
The first stage of Birkins mutation also has a
cameo appearance in the opening of
Resident Evil Outbreak.
