Jill Valentine - Design and Portrayal

Design and Portrayal

During development of the original Resident Evil, Jill was conceived as physically weaker than the game's male protagonist Chris Redfield, but she was given more skills and weapons to compensate for this. The development team for Resident Evil 3: Nemesis commented that Jill was deliberately designed to make her "beautiful for everybody" and appeal to both male and female gamers, as males would find her physically attractive and females would see her as a tough role model.

In the Nintendo GameCube remake of Resident Evil, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi said the team wanted Jill to be "a little cuter" so that "her action and atmosphere has charm". Her facial and physical appearance from the remake onwards is based on Canadian model and actress Julia Voth, and her body was scanned into computers to make her look as much like Voth as possible. Character designer Kenichiro Yoshimura said that he "made Jill's face as much similar as I could to the model actress face." However, so that she remains a tough character, her body is designed to be "not skinny, more like muscular". In 2011, Julia Voth recalled her audition in Tokyo: "there were tons of girls there. They told us it was for a video game, but nothing more. I had no idea she would grow to the popularity that she did. I feel very blessed to be part of it. It really is such a great honor." Asked whether would she play Jill in a film, Vorth answered, "Where do I sign? I have always felt a connection to Jill, and more so always been very proud of the fact that people still love her and want to play her. It would truly be a full circle moment for me in my life and career." In 2012, she also portrayed a character "Jill" in zombie short film Project: S.E.R.A. by Ben Howdeshell, who has worked on Resident Evil films.

On the change of appearance for Jill (who was turned blonde) and Chris Redfield in Resident Evil 5, production director Yasuhiro Anpo said that he tried "to preserve their image and imagined how they would have changed over the passage of time" and so they "made a new design that retained their signature color—green for Chris, blue for Jill—to carry over the same look from the past. The facial structures are mainly based on the visuals of the Nintendo GameCube version, and we added various details to these in order to develop a realistic structure." Producer Jun Takeuchi said Jill's unlockable "classic look" STARS uniform from the first Resident Evil is his favorite extra costume in the game.

Jill was voiced by Catherine Disher in Resident Evil 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Heidi Anderson voiced her in the 2002 GameCube remake of the first game, in which Julia Voth was Jill's motion capture actress. Patricia Ja Lee provided the voice and motion capture in The Umbrella Chronicles, Resident Evil 5 (including all of its later released downloadable content) and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. Kari Wahlgren assumes the role in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3; Michelle Ruff lends her voice to the character in Resident Evil: Revelations and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. In the Japanese versions of Apocalypse, she was dubbed by Okamoto Maya for the TV version and by Atsuko Yuya (who also returned as Jill's Japanese voice actress in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3) for the Blu-ray release.

Sienna Guillory portrays Jill in the live-action films, where she is one of protagonists turned an antagonist. Guillory said she was "incredibly proud to be a part of this" and felt "there is no greater motivator than knowing you’re going to be squaring off against Milla Jovovich in a cat-suit months after giving birth to twins;" she also talked about problems with Jill's "boob-ament" mind control device prop during the fifth film's production.