Greg Smith tells of experience as first Resident Evil Barry Burton’s actor

A retired principal now living in a Queensland paradise was walking the streets of Tokyo when he was made an offer he couldn’t refuse. Almost 30 years later, dedicated fans tracked him down and got him to don the costume once more.

Whitsunday resident Greg Smith has played Barry Burton in the original version of Resident Evil.

Greg Smith doesn’t look like the type of person you’d see fighting zombies in a video game.
The retired principal living in the Whitsundays had almost forgotten his past as a beloved Resident Evil character, before obsessed fans tracked him down using facial recognition technology, reaching out to his school email.

His only thought — how did these people find me?

Nearly 30 years ago, Mr Smith was a young teacher sent to Japan by NSW Education to teach English, living in Roppongi, Tokyo.

On one fateful day in 1995 he was approached by a stranger on the street, who wanted to offer him a very good deal.

Mr Smith would get US$3000 for two days of filming work, playing the character of a video game that would be soon released by Japanese company CapCom — the first Resident Evil.

“I was walking along and someone stopped me, he told me he was a talent scout,” Mr Smith explains.

“He told me I looked like the character they wanted.

“I happened to walk down the street at the right time when that guy was out, in an area which was really frequented by foreigners, looking for a foreign face that would go close to the video game.

“It’s one of those things that’s meant to be.”

Greg Smith now leaves in Airlie Beach where he plans to spend his retiring years. Picture: Estelle Sanchez

Greg would play Barry Burton, a weapon specialist that evolves in a world where people are transformed into zombies as a consequence of medical experimentations with a bioweapon named the T-Virus.

Greg spent the next two days filming his part for the game, wearing his character’s costume, playing with weapons, going into helicopters and shooting scenes at “a nice area by the river”.
That video would play as the opening cutscene of the famous survival game, beloved by fans of the series even decades later.

Greg Smith acted as Barry Burton for Resident Evil 1 in 1995. Picture: Resident Evil Wiki

A time forgotten

While Greg remembers signing a contract that forbade him from taking any photos, or keeping anything from the filming, that unexpected moment was soon a distant memory.

It was only 20 years later that Mr Smith received an email on his school account from a German man, asking him if by any chance he had starred in a famous video game two decades ago.

A lot of memories came back to Greg at the evocation of a time in his life he had nearly forgotten.

But how had those people found him?

Hardcore Resident Evil fans found the Greg Smith that had acted as Barry Burton for Resident Evil 1 in 1995 in a photo published in a NSW newspaper. Picture: Estelle Sanchez

“They used facial recognition, there was a picture of me in the paper when I was doing the Sydney Children’s Hospital telethon, [and] they were doing facial recognition across the world for Greg Smiths.

“The facial recognition picked up me 30 years older.

“I started to receive emails, all of a sudden 2000 people are contacting me from all over the world.”

A video game star who doesn’t like video games

Since that time, Mr Smith has retired and moved to Airlie Beach in search of the sun from his hometown in Wagga Wagga, NSW.

In the last couple of years, he has started to fully grasp the extent to which Resident Evil hardcore fans can go to, as they send him emails by thousands asking for advice on the game, or wanting autographs, while others have started a Wiki Fan page for him and his character.

And Mr Smith has decided to play along.

It’s now a common thing for him to send through autographs to fans worldwide, when he is not going on trips to America to attend conventions.

“I’m not a gamer. People write to me to ask for advice and I have no idea what to tell them,” Greg admitted with a laugh.

“I’ve played this game once and I wasn’t good at it.”

As a side note, this publication can confirm while Mr Smith is a very nice bloke to talk to, he didn’t appear well versed in the use of his mobile phone in front of us, and we trust his experience playing Resident Evil was the same.

In 2022, he went to Las Vegas on a trip all paid for by American fans of the video game, who at the time had wanted to reunite the first actors and interview them together as well as film a re-enactment of the first video.

This year is no different, with Mr Smith flying this time to Milwaukee, to attend the Midwest Gaming Classic at the beginning of April where he will once again “be Barry Burton for three days”.

Greg Smith sends signed autographs to Resident Evil fans across the world. Picture: Facebook The First Barry Burton

Apart from attending the convention, there are big plans in the works for Resident Evil fans.

During his time in the US, Greg said he will also film a trailer for the video to go on a crowdfunding, that if successful, should allow them to make a 10 minute movie about the continuation of the Resident Evil story.

“It shouldn’t happen but it did,” Greg concluded at the end of our interview.

“Every bit of this is true, you can’t make this stuff up.”

None of the events Greg has been to in the US have been directly in partnership with CapCom.

We’ve have reached out to them to ask if they can confirm whether Greg’s the real Barry Burton.