“Uncharted” stars Tom Holland (Nathan Drake), Mark Wahlberg (Victor Sullivan), Sophia Ali (Chloe Frazer) and Tati Gabrielle (Braddock) discuss the video game adaptation movie in this interview with CinemaBlend Managing Director Sean O’Connell. Tom Holland shares the stunt he calls “the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Mark Wahlberg opens up about why his “Max Payne” adaptation didn’t work and yes, we sneak a “Spider-Man: No Way Home” question in there.
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00:00And then like Tom Holland, I was like, wait a second, what do you mean Tom Holland?
00:05What?
00:11Literally no one on the planet knows more about the developments of this screenplay than you.
00:16On CinemaBlend, we've been writing Mark Wahlberg uncharted stories for about a decade.
00:20So I'm just curious.
00:21I apologize. You know what? I should have kept my mouth shut until we were actually
00:24into physical production.
00:25That's okay. Listen, we need content, so we'll take it.
00:28What were some of the changes?
00:29I just don't like to count my chickens before they hatch.
00:32I hate that.
00:32I'm never one of those guys who say, oh, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
00:35But it just always felt so real, you know, whether it was with David Russell in the beginning
00:39or whoever else we were kind of, you know, got close to the starting line, but never
00:44got out of the gate.
00:45Right.
00:45It was one of those things where you just feel like you sound like a broken record, you know?
00:49Can you remember a project that you stayed that closely to or attached to for that amount of time?
00:54No, because this now is well north of a decade.
00:58But with The Fighter, it's oddly enough, all the movies that I wanted to make that I have
01:02gotten made, usually it's like the six year rule.
01:06So Fighter took six years to make.
01:08A Father Stew took six years to make.
01:11Peter Berg was developing Lone Survivor for, I think, almost about that amount of time.
01:16Right.
01:16So but this one, yeah, it was so funny because it was actually just like one of those things
01:22where I just chalked up to not going to happen.
01:23Same thing with Six Billion Dollar Man, actually.
01:25Right.
01:26So it was just kind of like one of those things where I just thought it wasn't going to happen.
01:28Then I got the phone call and they were like, all right, we're going to make Uncharted.
01:31I'm like, cool.
01:32Who's the guy?
01:32You know, before it was De Niro, maybe, you know, Jack or whoever.
01:36Right.
01:36And they were like, Tom Holland.
01:37I was like, wait a second.
01:39What do you mean Tom Holland?
01:40That's me being generous.
01:41Wow.
01:42And they were like, well, Tom Holland.
01:43I'm like, for what?
01:45He was like, for Nate.
01:46I said, well, who am I going to be?
01:48And now, you know, we're strapped on the mustache and here we are.
01:52What is that thing on your face?
01:54Puberty's right around the corner, kid.
01:55You can grow your own.
01:57I'm really telling everybody they have to see this in IMAX because the third act action
02:00set pieces are fantastic.
02:02It's pretty cool.
02:02What was a harder one to film?
02:03Is it the plane sequence from this movie or the finale of Homecoming?
02:08The plane sequence from this movie is the hardest thing I've ever done.
02:13Just months of hard work hanging off of these boxes, being pushed and thrown and dragged by
02:19wires and smashed into boxes and falling off of boxes, losing your grip.
02:25All of us tore our hands up because, you know, you're hanging onto these kind of ropes and,
02:30you know, it gets to a point where you just can't hang on anymore.
02:32But you're trying to, you're trying to, and you let go and you cut your hands up.
02:35So we had bangs and bruises and tears all over the place.
02:39It was it was tough.
02:40It's definitely relieving to hear that for sure.
02:43For them?
02:45Yeah.
02:45No, it's definitely yes.
02:47Hard physical stuff.
02:49Took some balls, took some hits.
02:52How many days does it take to put a sequence like that together?
02:54The airplane sequence?
02:55I think it took two weeks to film that.
02:58I could be lying, though.
02:59But it felt like two weeks at least.
03:09Tom, tell me about the first time you tried on the shoulder holster
03:11for the scene that's such an important part for Nathan.
03:14It was actually really exciting.
03:16Gary Dawson, who was our props master, who is a very good friend of mine.
03:19I've worked with him on numerous occasions.
03:22He gave me the holster.
03:24I tried it on and there was something about putting it on which like completed the look.
03:29It kind of just brought the character to life in a really, really visual way.
03:34So it was it was really awesome.
03:35It's pretty cool, huh?
03:37Pirate ships are one of the most inspired set pieces I've seen in a really long time.
03:42And I'm assuming it's a lot of CGI, but they also look really, really practical, too.
03:46What were those days on set like?
03:47Well, they actually built a couple of ships.
03:49So we had the ships.
03:50We had the ship suspended in air, you know, or a portion of the ship.
03:55It was pretty cool.
03:56You know, I mean, for me, it's like it's a real movie, like an Indiana Jones type of movie.
04:01It's not like a small Indiana Jones movie.
04:03It's like a real movie.
04:04An Indiana Jones type of movie.
04:05It's not like a small, intimate story.
04:07This is like big, huge Hollywood blockbuster, action adventure, fantasy, all that stuff,
04:14you know, which I just think is just a different level and height of cinema.
04:18I got to ask you about the line, nuns.
04:21Why has it always got to be nuns?
04:22Is it an Indiana Jones nod?
04:24It is absolutely an Indiana Jones nod, yes.
04:27Snakes.
04:28Why did it have to be snakes?
04:30I think for us, you know, we realized that those films are so incredible and so unique
04:35that we wanted to pay respects to them and we wanted to lean into that genre.
04:40And what better way to do it than to reference it in the film?
04:45You have no idea who you partnered with.
04:48Zoe, hurry!
04:51It's going to take a little longer than I thought, kid.
04:54I love that Uncharted could end up becoming the film
04:58that's a gateway for young girls who watch these characters on screen
05:02and they think, you know, that could be me.
05:05And sometimes, you know, they don't see great representation in action movies.
05:09And so I want to know, who was your action role model when you were growing up?
05:12Who did you look at and think, oh, I want to do that?
05:15My two action role models, the first was actually Zoe Saldana in Columbiana.
05:20And that was the first time that I had seen,
05:23especially like a woman of color, seen like a just super like, you know,
05:27dope girl do her thing.
05:29Charlie's Angels.
05:31Really?
05:31Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz.
05:34Yep. And I was so young when it came out.
05:37Too young to watch it, but I did anyway.
05:39The second was Angelina Jolie in like Salt and Wanted and things like that.
05:45Yeah, that made me like, I want to do that one day.
05:47And Tomb Raider, one of the better video game adaptations
05:50before you guys knocked it out of the park.
05:53Yeah.
05:53All right, I need to know about your relationship
05:56with your unique weapon, with your knife.
06:00Did it take a lot of training?
06:01Is it something that you held onto all the time on set to get better with it?
06:04What was that working relationship like?
06:07So I didn't get a lot of like the, I guess,
06:09one-on-one training with the Cranbit itself.
06:11Most of how I learned it was through like my own research, watching YouTube videos.
06:16And then, yeah, they gave me a fake one, a rubber one that,
06:20yeah, I had that thing all the time.
06:22At home, I would just like flip it around,
06:23just try to get as comfortable with it as I could
06:26to make it look like it was something that, you know, was Braddock's weapon of choice.
06:30Yeah, it's a unique skill set that you now bring with you
06:33to whatever film you do next.
06:39I love the Nolan North cameo, of course.
06:41And I'm just wondering if there's anything that he was able to give you
06:44from his own experience that you incorporated into your own portrayal?
06:48I think for me, he gave me enough from what he did with the games.
06:52I was a big fan of the games.
06:53A damn one.
06:54And I went back and played them again in preparation for making the film.
06:58And I just was able to...
07:00I didn't want to copy what he did.
07:03Ruben and Chuck and Alex, our producers,
07:05they didn't want me to mimic him in any way,
07:08which I'm really glad because otherwise I wouldn't have been acting.
07:12I would have been mimicking.
07:13So I was able to sort of take the essence of the character
07:16and some of the lines, you know, I say,
07:18oh, crap, all the time.
07:19And we have the well, well, well joke,
07:21which is something that he has been known to say.
07:23So there's a few things I took here and there,
07:25but mostly I kind of reinvented the character.
07:31What are some of the things that creatives need to pay attention to
07:34when they're adapting a video game over the screen?
07:37Well, I think we learned with Max Payne,
07:40there just wasn't, I don't know,
07:41it wasn't as big, a broad and interesting a story
07:44and world for people to want to see,
07:47you know, it's kind of dark brooding guy,
07:50you know, similar to like the Punisher.
07:52And this movie, it's just, it's for everybody.
07:55You don't have to know the video game to really go and enjoy this film.
07:59There's so much wish fulfillment in there.
08:00It really is for entire family.
08:02And obviously we wanted to first and foremost,
08:04do justice to the game and the diehard gamers
08:08who made it so successful.
08:09But then we also wanted to make sure we introduced
08:11a whole new audience to Uncharted.
08:14I've been dreaming about this my whole life.
08:17John's gold, the biggest treasure that's never been found.
08:21What's happening?
08:23They're starting to come through and I can't stop them.
08:28Over My Shoulder is my new favorite movie of all time.
08:31My friend, it's a masterpiece.
08:33I have to ask about a scene, it's my favorite scene in it.
08:35That's when you're saying goodbye to the other two Peters
08:37and then you go in for the hug.
08:39Is that scripted or improvised?
08:43I don't remember.
08:45I don't remember.
08:46Okay.
08:47Every, so much of this film was improvised, you know,
08:50based off of great writing.
08:51But, you know, we all were allowed to bring our own spin to it.
08:55So it wouldn't surprise me if it was something that was improvised,
08:58but it definitely was something at the time that felt so right.
09:01We had a very similar moment in real life only a couple of weeks before.
09:07So maybe some people saw that on set and were like,
09:10we need them to recreate that, but just on camera.
09:13So, so yeah, so maybe it came from that.
09:15Paul, I'm your co-stars playing the most popular superhero on the planet.
09:20Somehow you have managed to avoid outside of Blue Falcon,
09:23which I loved, you know, getting into the superhero genre.
09:26Is this just a lack of opportunities or something you wanted to avoid?
09:29No, I think I, I, first of all,
09:32I'm not brave enough to walk out of my trailer with a cape and spandex.
09:37But I did want to, and I've been trying to make Six Billion Dollar Man
09:41for quite some time, which I thought was a great balance
09:44of all this kind of wish fulfillment and these abilities to do amazing things,
09:49but still being very grounded and real and doing it with normal clothes on.
09:54And this is happening?
09:56Well, I mean, right now it's not happening,
09:59but we're eager to get it made if we can.
10:01I mean, we were kind of close, I would say, within the last year.
10:06And then the studio was like, oh, we're going to press pause for now.
10:09So we'll see.
10:10I mean, I would never close that door completely.
10:13I still have Lee Majors calling me, asking me what's going on and what's happening.
10:17And I wish I had better news for him.
10:18But it's just one of those things where, you know,
10:20unless I finance it myself, right now it's probably not going to happen.
10:25But this is a blast.
10:27And I really appreciate your time as always, Mark.
10:30Oh, thank you.
10:30Appreciate you.
10:32Hey, you still with me?
10:34Barry Lee!
10:39Yeah!