‘Uncharted’: 3 Actors Who Almost Played Nathan Drake Before Tom Holland
The Uncharted movie, an adaptation of Sony’s famous PlayStation video game series, follows young Nathan Drake on his first adventure as a treasure hunter. With help from his mentor, Victor “Sully” Sullivan, Nate aims to track down a $5 billion fortune initially discovered by Ferdinand Magellan. However, he’s in a race against the evil Santiago Moncada, who believes the treasure rightfully belongs to his family.
Tom Holland stars in this adventure flick as Nathan Drake, but he wasn’t the first actor considered to play the protagonist in Uncharted. Here are three actors who almost landed the role.
Mark Wahlberg was the ‘Uncharted’ movie’s OG Nathan Drake
Uncharted went through years of development hell before it finally reached the big screen in February. That hell included several trashed scripts and changes to the cast, writer’s room, and director’s seat. The very first actor attached to the role of Nathan Drake was Mark Wahlberg in 2010. At the time, Wahlberg confirmed that David O. Russell had signed on to work on a script based on the first game in the Uncharted franchise.
“I’m obviously in whatever David wants to do, but the idea of it is so off the charts: Robert De Niro being my father, Joe Pesci being my uncle,” the Father Stu actor told MTV, per Kotaku. “It’s not going to be the watered-down version, that’s for sure.”
A few months later, Russell left Uncharted for Silver Linings Playbook, with Neil Berger taking over. The film then fell apart a bit when it cycled through a few more writers and directors. Eventually, Rafe Judkins reimagined the script alongside Art Marcum and Matt Holloway.
The film would serve as a prequel to the games, so Uncharted needed a younger actor — enter Tom Holland. However, by 2019, Wahlberg signed back on to play Victor Sullivan alongside Holland.
Chris Pratt turned down the role of Nathan Drake
During the limbo period between Wahlberg’s and Holland’s casting, Sony approached actor Chris Pratt to play Nathan Drake in Uncharted. However, as The Hollywood Reporter noted in 2014, he turned down the role. It’s unclear what his reason was for declining.
For what it’s worth, even Nolan North, the voice actor for Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games, recommended Pratt for the role. Speaking to Daily Star in 2016, North said the Guardians of the Galaxy star would “do it justice.”
“He’s vulnerable, he’s kinda funny, he’s kinda that hero with a smirk, cocky and confident. That scene when he says ‘I’m Starlord,’ that’s such a Drake moment,” North said.
Nathan Fillion really wanted to play Nathan Drake in ‘Uncharted’
In 2010, Castle star Nathan Fillion took to Twitter to express interest in playing Nathan Drake shortly after Russell signed on as director. Fans kicked off a vigorous social media campaign to land Fillion the role. Unfortunately, Russell never considered Fillion. He did eventually go on to play Nathan Drake, but not in the official Uncharted film. Instead, it was a 14-minute fan-made film that received positive feedback from viewers.
Last year, Fillion told Gaming Bible that he had no regrets about seeing Holland cast as the treasure hunter.
“My only regret is that we had to wait so very, very long for someone to do something so we could actually see some Uncharted stuff,” Fillion said. “Other than that, I think all my boxes have been checked. I’m pretty excited to see what they do with that. I love movies, and those guys have never let us down; Tom Holland, come on, Mark Wahlberg. We’re gonna have a great time.”
Uncharted is now streaming on Netflix.
