Just a few days before the Uncharted movie hit theaters, Sony released an in-depth featurette, titled Creator to Creator: Uncharted, highlighting some important aspects of the upcoming video game adaptation. As part of the video, star Tom Holland and director Ruben Fleischer revealed that improvisation played a huge role in the film and the actors had a lot of fun participating in it, too.
In the upcoming Uncharted movie, Holland will embody the role of one of the most popular characters in the gaming world, explorer Nathan Drake. Fleischer appreciates the camaraderie between Holland and Mark Wahlberg, who portrays the role of Victor Sullivan, and it turns out that many of the scenes featuring banter between the two main characters were improvised.
Uncharted director Fleischer believes that Holland and Wahlberg “don’t get enough credit for how funny [they] are.” When the cameras would start rolling, the two actors would perform their lines, while simultaneously “giving each other crap.” The characters in the game have a unique chemistry, and in Fleischer's opinion, Holland and Wahlberg were able to bring that same chemistry to life in the live-action adaptation.
“It was thrilling to just get you two going back and forth, and so much of the banter, as I recall, was improvised. It develops into a real bond and this true reliance one each other,” Fleischer is heard saying to Holland. The actor, who has been playing the Uncharted games for a while now, agrees that it was a lot of fun, but challenging at the same time. “It was daunting having the confidence to improvise and put yourself in a vulnerable position. Because, anytime you improvise, and it's not funny, it's horrible," Holland confessed.
Over the course of the shoot, Holland and Wahlberg realized what triggered the other, and they became quite comfortable “pushing each other’s buttons.” The interesting bit in the video is revealed by Neil Druckmann, co-president of Naughty Dog, who compares Holland and Wahlberg's performance with that of the voice actors in the Uncharted games. He informs Holland that the process followed by Nolan North, who voiced Drake in the games, and Richard McGonagle, who voiced Sully, was quite similar to theirs. It turns out that the voice actors also improvised a lot of the banter between the leading characters, and it seems like the trend has been carried forward.
Uncharted is now playing in theaters.
Source: Sony/YouTube
