Interview: Troy Baker On Becoming Nathan Drake’s Brother In Uncharted 4

Troy Baker has featured in countless video games – well, you might want an abacus as you’re reading through his IMDB profile, at the very least – and he’s garnered a lot of love and praise for some of his leading roles over the past few years. He and Nolan North have almost carved the industry up between themselves, but Uncharted 4 marks one of those rare moments where they’re both “on screen” at the same time.

Troy is, to say the very least, a busy, busy man. So I forgive him as we shake hands, for having to be gently reminded of a face he saw for all of five seconds when I first met him at the BAFTAs a few weeks ago. Naturally, I have to follow up on the particularly banal question that I asked him there, before moving on to talk about Uncharted 4. I mean, that’s the real reason why we were sat down in a room of a stunning castle in Italy…

TSA: Let’s go back to the BAFTAs, did you have a good shopping trip? Did you get to visit Bond Street?

Troy Baker: I did not! I was barely there, so… I literally sat down in my seat for about 30 seconds before they brought me up on stage to present, then I did the press liner thing, came back, sat down and then Dara was, “And that’s out show tonight!” I was like, “Son of a bitch!” Then the next day I had a couple of meetings that I had to do in London, so that took up my time and then we jumped on the train to go to Bristol.

But London, that city calls to me, man. Nobody can afford to live in London, but I would love if I could live in England. If I could live anywhere else, that would be where.

TSA: Do you have long here in Rome? Have you got any plans?

Troy Baker: No! I got to go into town last night with my wife and we had an amazing dinner. Fortunately, I’ve been here before, but these trips are… first of all, you’d have to pry me away from this place [Castello Orsini], because this is pretty dope!

But no, we fly out early tomorrow, but I try to come back as often as I can.

TSA: I guess we should talk a little bit about Uncharted 4?

Troy: Let’s do it!

TSA: From the point of view of coming into this game, with The Last of Us, with Bioshock Infinite, with so many of your games, you’re there at the beginning, creating that character and helping to create that story from the very beginning. In Uncharted 4, all of that’s already been done. Is that refreshing? Is that easier in some ways?

Troy: That’s interesting…

Um, you still have the same challenge, because we are kind of inserting this character that has supposedly been there the entire time, but hasn’t been there the entire time.

TSA: That’s the mystery… [laughs]

Troy: So it becomes this cool challenge of what can you do to make people believe that Sam has always been there?

So you’ve still got the same challenges and the same opportunities that you would coming into it as a fresh franchise, but you have the comfort and this warm blanket that wraps around you going, “We got you.” This thing has been successful, people love this game.

I was just telling the person that was here before, I came in going, “I hope I’m not the one that screws this up and makes this bad!”

TSA: Maybe there was a reason why you had “TBA” on the tab of your mo-cap suit? [laughs]

Troy: Yeah! It was just in case!

But it was great, because Neil is such a great director and such a great person. He sat me down and he goes, “You know, there’s almost 300 people that are making this game – and it’s a really good game – you’re not going to mess this up.”

I realised, and he helped me realise, that it’s all ego, because this is Uncharted. I could be bad and the game’s still going to be good. I’m not the one who can single handedly bring down this franchise. So once I kind of got over myself, then I could just listen to Sam and find where he fits into the story. You trust your director, you trust your writer, you trust the other actors, and all the other people that are making this game, and you just sit down and make a good game.

TSA: How much did you get to put into creating who Sam is within this world?

Troy: Neil and Josh both are really collaboratively minded. Neil always has an answer in the back pocket, but he’s really curious to see what you think about this. With working on The Last of Us, there’s a respect that’s been built because I gave my damnedest to make that a good character…

TSA: [Whispers] It was..

Troy: [Laughs] It was! And you know, that’s part mine and a lot of other parts a lot of other people, but Neil is so good at trusting his actors and letting them have agency in creating the character, that all I really had to do was sit and work with him about it.

But there were a lot of questions about it. Even before we started shooting, I spent a day up at Naughty Dog just going through the script, going through the ideas with Neil and Josh. One of the first things was how do we make sense that this guy is older than Nate when I’m younger than Nolan? We had a long conversation about it, and we finally landed on the fact of this 15 year gap. Before this, Sam was very much the paternal figure and he was very much the older brother, and now Nate has kind of moved on. He’s found Sully, he’s found Elena, he’s found these other friends, and he’s had all these adventures.

So that first scene that we showed when Sam and Nathan are reunited and they go out to the little bench overlooking the water, and Sam says, “Catch me up. What have I missed?” It’s then really cool for the player to be able to go, “Oh my God, which story do I tell?”

TSA: Yeah, I liked that. It’s a really nice touch.

Troy: Yeah! Because I would go to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, just because, you know, I found zombie Nazis at the bottom of a U-Boat…

TSA: Always go with the zombie Nazis. Obviously!

Troy: Yeah man, of course!

But to be able to [remember] that again, now that the player and Nate are in partnership and they’re trying to communicate that to Sam.

What I think we landed on in that talk that Neil, Josh and I had, was that in that time, Nate’s moved on and he’s kind of become the older brother and Sam’s still stuck here. So the older’s become the younger and the younger’s become the older. So it’s a really interesting flip on the dynamic, and that forced Nolan and I not to try and put anything on it, it was just to be us, because that’s just the way that we are. We give each other [grief] in between takes, and we’re really open to improvisation with each other…

TSA: Are you a bit of a crazy double act when you work together? Actually, how often do you get to work alongside Nolan?

Troy: We’ve done some stuff before. Like we’ve done Transformers for about 5 minutes together, because people realised you can never put the two of us in the same room together…

TSA: Yeah, so are you just constantly messing around? Are you a bit insufferable, almost?

Troy: Well, what’s interesting and what’s kind of cool and, again, part of the humbling process as you walk in, is that I’m not the number 1 on the call sheet. I’m not the number 2, I’m the number 3, so… [laughs]

TSA: And when Elena’s there, you’re the number 4… [laughs]

Troy: You walk in and you understand that if anyone’s going to be top dog here, it’s going to be Nolan. So you can let him hold court and you can kind of be his hype man or his colour man who comes in and is like, [in a squeaky voice] “That’s right! You give it to him Nolan!”

But you know, for me, having had the opportunity to play a lead character in several games recently, it was kind of cool to be able to come in and think I’m supporting cast in this. It kind of took the pressure off and allowed me to focus more on Sam than who Troy was, I’d say.

TSA: You kind of touched on this in the presentation before about being a fan of Uncharted yourself, and it’s maybe a bit like the people who just want to be a Stormtrooper in a Star Wars film.

Troy: Yeah! [laughs]

TSA: Well obviously, who wouldn’t? But there’s just that little twist where you don’t always have to be in the limelight and can be in the background a bit.

Troy: It’s really, really comforting. I kind of liked it!

TSA: So, would you say you’re a bit of a child at heart?

Troy: Oh! Well, yeah!

TSA: And do you think that kind of helps with getting past the suit and all the dots on your face, and just having that kind of childish nonsense and imagination?

Troy: Absolutely, and it’s like what Nolan said on stage. He’s framed this the best, he was like, “I get paid to do what used to get me detention.” And it’s true!

If you look at any school right now, the kids that are sitting out in the hall because they got kicked out for being too much of a disturbance, those are probably going to be the ones that are the most creative people that we know. They just don’t fit within the confines of normalcy.

That was definitely me growing up. My teachers, my parents, nobody knew what to do with me. It took 40 years, but I finally found out that, “Oh, you just do this!”

TSA: You just mess around, but make sure you’re getting paid for it first.

Troy: Yeah! If you can monetise your passions, that’s the ultimate dream!

But for me, it was never losing sight of the kid at heart, but not because we’re making something childish. That’s the thing I love about Nathan Drake, is that he does have a childlike wonder. He looks at places and doesn’t see the “Danger! Do not trespass!” sign, he goes, “That’s where I wanna go!”

For me as an actor, that’s kind of the same heart, where you have to come in, just look past the warning signs and the danger, and be brave enough to fail. So yeah, that’s the challenge.

TSA: Now that everything’s done, are you excited to play Uncharted 4? I know there’s quite a few Hollywood and TV actors who hate to watch anything that they’re in, but is that the same for you in games?

Troy: You know, I’ll say this. Every actor who’s like that, and I think Johnny Depp is the main one who’s always like, “I’ve never seen a movie I’ve made,” and I’m like, “That’s your own thing, man.” For me, number one, as a gamer I don’t want to be limited to the experiences I can have simply because I can’t get over myself. Absolutely.

I told Neil, because he was like, “I think I can get you an advance copy.” I said, “Nope, because I want to go to the store, I want to take off the shrink wrap, I want to open it up, put it in, wait for the download. I want to do all of this stuff as a gamer, because I’ve already done my job, and I can’t change anything. I’m not going to sit here and critique the work that I did, because that’s me being full of myself and completely ego driven. No, I just want to be a gamer, I just want to sit back and I just want to spend fifteen to twenty hours with one of my favourite characters and my favourite franchises, and just play the game.

TSA: If you’ve really enjoyed creating that character, do you sometimes start chiming in with them as you play?

Troy: [laughs] I hope not! If I’ve done my job, then Troy’s no longer involved and I just get to see Sam. That’s always my goal, to get out of the way and let the character come forward.

Thanks to Troy for speaking to us and delving into some of what’s gone into creating Sam Drake for Uncharted 4. Keep an eye out for our review in the not-too-distant future.

This interview came together as part of a European press junket for Uncharted 4 in Rome, with travel and accommodation having been provided by Sony for the event.