[This story contains spoilers for Uncharted.]
Fortune favors the bold, and in Sony Picture’s Uncharted — a big-screen prequel to Naughty Dog’s hit gaming franchise — Tati Gabrielle’s Jo Braddock knows it.
An original character created for the Ruben Fleischer-directed action-adventure starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, Braddock is the leader of a mercenary group, hired by Antonio Banderas’ Santiago Moncada, the last living descendent of the family that funded Ferdinand Magellan’s famed global expedition.
Moncada is looking to claim a treasure rumored to have been hidden by Magellan’s crew and has enlisted Braddock seemingly as his second in command. There’s just one problem: charismatic pickpocket-turned-treasure hunter Nathan Drake (Holland) and his (untrusty) mentor Sully (Wahlberg) are out for the gold, too.
And so begins the global sprint to acquire the keys that, if legends are true, could unlock a road to riches. As the other characters scramble through their own rat race, the calculating and merciless Braddock takes an opening to chart her own course and go for the gold.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Gabrielle about her history of playing alarmingly charming female villains, the challenges of filming two of Uncharted‘s biggest fight sequences and what’s actually between Sully and Braddock.
Braddock is an original character and one of the more physically dynamic fighters on screen. How did you approach preparing for Braddock, both in terms of story and stunt work?
From the stunt perspective, I did a lot of physical training. There was three to four months working with a trainer, pretty much working out every day to gain 15 pounds worth of muscle. As far as the character itself, I approached it by looking first at the games and seeing what the world of the games was. I didn’t have yet at that point a PlayStation or anything to be able to play the game, so I just binged on YouTube all the Uncharted gameplay that I could see and all of the storylines that I could find, just to get a full feel of what kind of space this is. In watching all of those videos, I started to learn of other characters that I sort of took inspiration from. For me, it was Nadine [Ross] and Rafe [Adler]. The two of them together is what I started to form as Braddock in my head, in the way of Nadine being this super badass chick on top of her stuff, and Rafe being this sort of villainous, conniving, not really knowing who side he’s on yet guy.
Then to give Braddock her own space, it took a lot of conversations with Ruben [Fleischer] with us trying to develop backstory; see where she’s from; what kind of training as far as the type of fighting she does; where does her motivation to find treasure come from. We went through a lot of ideas of her being an Army brat, and she’s traveled with her parents. But there was one fundamental thing about Braddock, and essentially we decided that she was a psychopath. A clinically diagnosed psychopath. She has no empathy, no compassion for anyone or regard for life — questionably no regard for even her own life. That was something that Ruben really drove home even through the course of us filming. It was something that was very hard for me being that I’m a very empathetic person and a very joyful person. So anytime that I would try to bring emotion to Braddock, he would shut it down and “No, remember? We’re in this pocket.” And I’m like, “OK, got you.” (Laughs.) Which was a fun challenge.
Braddock enters the story as a secondary villain, but as we see, she makes quite the power move. What did you think about it when you first read it, and what was it like filming it with Antonio Banderas?
Of course, my first reaction reading it was “Oh, my God.” It blew my mind. I was like, “No, I don’t want to kill Zorro!” (Laughs.) But at the same time, I was really excited to be able to have this with Antonio and be able to have a really fun moment to play as actors. Because Antonio is one of the most joyful people that you will ever meet in your life. He has such love, just pure love and joy for life and wants to spread that to anyone that he comes in contact with. He’s also such a thespian. So combine those two together, he’s an actor’s dream to work with. Particularly that day, I remember us trying it so many different ways and loving the way that Antonio was willing to go for it and put up this challenge as an actor. We got to the point where it could have been theater the way that it was done. Some takes are probably so eggy. (Laughs.) But it was a very rewarding acting exercise for me as a young buck to work with a vet in this way. I only had a few days with him on set, but to get the teachings that he was willing to give me and in the way in which he would always show up and be a giving actor was so rewarding, so inspiring and something that I definitely will take into the rest of my career.
What’s interesting about Braddock’s twist is that Sophia Alie’s Chloe Frazer appears to be more her competitor, but she avoids taking down another woman and instead goes for the man in charge. Why?
I believe that Braddock was driven only by power. That it, for her, wasn’t ever really about the gold because they have everything that they could possibly need — all of them. With the clothes that she wears, she has no need for this gold. So it’s purely for her a thing about power and about winning that power. When it came to deciding who do I need to take out, she’s gonna go as far up as possible. She’s gonna go, in that way, for the gold. She goes for Santiago because she knows she can best Chloe. She’s already figured that out. She knows that Chloe is clever, but that Chloe is, differently than Braddock, more street savvy. She’s made due for herself. She doesn’t necessarily have formal training. She’s scrappy in that way, in the best way. So Braddock knows if I had to match up with her, I could probably win that. Santiago has resources that I can’t match up to yet, but if I take him out, I take his resources. So for Braddock, the ultimate goal was to have everything that she could possibly need so that no one can come up against her.
This isn’t the first villain you’ve played. You notably played fan-favorite Prudence Night on The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. What for you is the magic behind and representation of female villains?
It’s funny because I feel every actor wants to play a villain at some point. It’s one of the most fun things that you can do. It’s always fun to be the bad guy. It’s a fun acting challenge to try to make people hate you. How could you be so bad that you make people like and love hating you? I never thought, though, that I would be caught in this. I don’t want to say I’m typecast because I hope that I’m never typecasted, but I never thought that it would be something that would permeate like that — that people would continue to see me as a villain. I feel it’s something that has come to me and I’ve stepped to it and said, “OK, yeah, let’s try this.” I think that though after Uncharted I probably won’t take another character like this for a while. I want to keep variety in my abilities and what I’m able to show and what I’m able to challenge myself with.
But I do think that the need for female villains in the space of film and television, is to show how powerful a woman could really be. That there can be the woman that can try to take over everything and will do it. There will be the woman that has complete reckless abandon and will let her fire roar and shine. I also think that sometimes female villains have a bad rap, that they’re not given their proper dues, or they’re given some type of ridiculous flaw that doesn’t actually match what a woman is capable of. Those ways, I think, are very disrespectful to women, are very degrading, and immediately take away all that power that it gives them. But I hope to see the evolution of female villains in the way of seeing more characters like Braddock and beyond that, from start to finish hold their power, hold their stance in the world and go out with a fight.
You were involved in two of the film’s biggest stunt sequences — the plane fight and the boat fight. What were the most challenging parts of filming those? And did you pick up any new skills from them?
Both of the scenes are very difficult to shoot, particularly the boat scene because the entire thing is on a slant. It was on this 45-degree angle and on anybody’s shins and ankles, that is going to be difficult. Running sideways across it — not up and down it. Up and down would probably be a lot easier! (Laughs.) But we’re running back and forth, connected to wires and all kinds of things. The biggest challenge that we faced with that one was when we got up there, you can’t control dust and things getting on the set. Because it was an outdoor set on a slant, and with the thing being slippery, the challenge then became how do we find a way with the stunt team, the art construction team to create traction on this deck without the camera being able to see it? So then it became a thing of how can we do it? On our shoes? Of course, we found a way eventually, but it was definitely a process.
The plane sequence was a four-day shoot, which is the longest sequence I think I’ve ever shot. With that, the biggest challenge was, we had these huge fans going to mimic this wind. You know when you stick your head out of a window, and you can’t breathe because the wind is coming so fast that you don’t know how to regulate? (Laughs.) I am that person and so trying to do these stunts, act like there’s so much more wind than there actually is, but then have an actual fan blowing in your face? You gotta talk, but you can’t breathe. It was so many elements that I had to be like, “Remember that thing and remember that thing.” I definitely walked away from that scene being able to multitask so much better. And understanding I think too from being in an action movie, that you would always want more elements. You’d always want more or the most realistic version of your environment. But you’re probably not going to get that. So you do have to use even more of your imagination to create the space or create that environment with your acting and not the elements. I think I learned more than anything from both of those sequences how important and how helpful communication is on set during those times. It’s the biggest thing. With Tom [Holland] and I on that boat, him and I were talking back and forth. “You good? How can I adjust to help you?” Just truly working together to get the shot off.
Your character doesn’t know Tom’s when the film starts, but there seems to be an interesting backstory and tension between Braddock and Sully. What’s behind that?
I feel we, in general, left this sort of open air for it, in case there is more explanation down the line that they decide to put in. But it’s basically that Sully and Braddock used to work together or used to do the treasure-hunting thing together and at some point, he backstabbed her and left her for dead. She’s obviously very much not happy about it. As far as the tension that’s between them, I feel that is also up for interpretation. I know particularly for both of us — Mark is like, “I am about to be 50, and this girl is 25. I am not about to play any kind of sexual relationship.” We both found that to be very uncomfortable and weird and not a thing that we wanted to preach or a message that we wanted to send. But there’s definitely I think a closeness that was there with him before. How I treated it was more in the way of he had almost become like Braddock’s big brother or a fatherly figure or something of that nature. That there was this intimate closeness but not in the way of it in a sexual nature. More so in a you’ve spent a lot of time with someone and you did put your trust in them yet they backstabbed you and took that away.
The film has what some might call a pretty conclusive ending for Braddock, but there still seems to be a little room for possibly more. Is it fair to say Braddock’s journey isn’t over?
I don’t know. That is all I can say. I do not know. I would love to see Braddock be explored more. I would love to get to see more of what she would look like in this world or how she could dive more into this world. But I don’t know. I think we’re all gonna have to wait.
There is that mid-credit scene.
That credit scene, I didn’t get to see until I watched the movie a few weeks ago. So that even told me some things that I was like, “Oh, interesting.” I’m curious to see where they go.
Jumping to The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, when the show ended with season four, Prudence was on a path of growth and potential redemption. Had you had talks with showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa about where your character might have gone if you’d had a fifth season?
Yeah, she definitely was on the path to growth and on the path to redeeming herself or trying to. I did have conversations with Roberto about what season five could have been. There were plans because you see at the end of season four that Prudence goes and chops up Blackwood and had plans to disperse his body amongst the world because at that point he couldn’t be killed. Roberto had talked a little bit about potentially Leticia and Judas going to find all of those pieces and putting Blackwood back together, and then having another showdown to face. There were also talks about Prudence and Ambrose going off and starting their own coven. Yeah, also really wanted to see that happen. That’s about as far as we got. I had also pitched this idea to Robert that he was really into and I was really looking forward to seeing where we could go with it, of bringing in magic from other cultures, particularly in this case, Egyptian magic or ancient Egyptian magic, and talking about Prudence’s mother and where her mother came from. Playing with the idea of whether her mother was still alive. So I was very sad to see that we had gotten canceled because I was excited to see the characters get their proper endings. I think that there are a lot of unanswered questions and just for my love of Prudence, I feel bad for her that she wasn’t able to find the peace she was always searching for.
You also starred in the third season of Netflix’s You as Marienne, the only woman to survive Joe so far. We see that he follows her to Paris, where she presumably fled. Do you want to see Joe find Marienne again?
Yes, but for the purposes of Marienne getting the closure that she needs. I don’t know what that closure looks like, but where we leave Marienne, she’s in this place where she has won her daughter back — by terrible means, but she’s won her daughter back. She thought that she was in love and headed toward a new life, a happy life and to find out that Joe wrecked everything? Yes, the one good that came out of that was she gets her daughter and she’s free from Ryan, but he put her in the worst position, even still. Now she’s in a position of being terrified of yet another man, of having to basically be on the run because she thinks that they’re going to pin Ryan’s death on her. She’s been presented so many more problems with that one takeaway. I feel that at the same time Marienne would want closure, she is also mature enough and strong enough that she wouldn’t necessarily need it. That she can move on without it. But I don’t even know what I’d want — you know, I want Marienne to be the one to kill Joe. Yeah, that’s what I want. (Laughs.)
Do we think she’ll get it possibly with a return for season four?
I am not at liberty to say anything, but … I hope so.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Source: Hollywood
