There’s always been something enticing about a quiet antagonist. Loud and grandstanding baddies have their place, but they never nail intimidating quite like the foil who knows who they are, what they can do, and feel no need to tell you. Whether it’s as Prudence in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, or Braddock in the upcoming Uncharted film, Tati Gabrielle has this particular archetype down to an art.
Without getting into spoiler territory for Uncharted, there’s a lot of character parallels between Prudence Night and Braddock. The longform storytelling of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meant that we got to see more empathy and growth from Prudence, but at their core both Prudence and Braddock are women who know what they deserve and don’t care who they have to mow down to get it. Gabrielle’s magnetism in these roles are a huge part of what makes them successful, too. The aforementioned grandstanding foils are easy to fall back on because anyone can play them. The calculating antagonist requires a certain presence that Tati Gabrielle seems to have always had.
Part of that seeming ease may be due to the ways that Gabrielle is able to dissect some of her characters, even if she doesn’t necessarily connect with all of them on a personal level. For Uncharted’s Braddock, it meant finding a singular aspect of the character to dive into. (Especially since there is no direct avatar between Braddock and the Uncharted games.)
“I did a lot of research into what it means to be a psychopath,” Gabrielle explained. “I believe that Braddock is truly a, like, clinically diagnosed psychopath. It was [a lot of ] trying to understand what it actually looks like to meet somebody that has no empathy and has zero regard for their fellow human being and sometimes even themselves.”
While Braddock isn’t a character from the games, there was still plenty for Gabrielle to turn to as she was working out the character. “I started with the fourth game, since I was told that most closely aligned to what we were doing in the film,” she explained. “So I did get to meet Nadine and Rafe that way. That is kind of where I got my inspiration for Braddock, sort of bringing Nadine and Rafe together into one [character].”
I really want to challenge myself to go as far as I can.
The Uncharted star also broke down what made her gravitate towards these kinds of roles, and whether she intends to stick with them or if fans can expect to see her shift away from them as her career grows.
“Yeah, I really hope to after Uncharted. I don’t think I’m going to take another role like this for a while because I’ve done it twice in a row already,” Gabrielle said. “I definitely want to move into more hero roles or just even unconventional ones. Something that I may not have even seen before or can put in as simple of a box as hero or anti-hero or villain. I really want to challenge myself to go as far as I can.”
Some actors end up playing the same role their whole careers, while others do everything they can to avoid being typecast so they have more options in the future. Neither is the right answer, with plenty of actors finding success on both sides of the fence. But it seems Tati Gabrielle is looking for something more. And with her talents, it’s hard to see why she wouldn’t.
Gabrielle has already had a rich career as both a young model and an actress, shifting recently from young adult fare into roles like her character Marienne Bellamy on Netflix’s You. We’ll see her continue that trend in the heist drama, Jigsaw — also Netflix — as she tackles her role as Hannah Kim. The series will air in September of 2022.
Catch Tati Gabrielle and the rest of the Uncharted cast in theaters February 18th, and for more on the film dig into Charting the Uncharted Movie’s Long Road Through Development Hell and this Official Uncharted Behind the Scenes Featurette.
Some quotes edited for clarity.
Amelia is a Streaming Editor here at IGN. She’s also a film and television critic who spends too much time
talking about dinosaurs, superheroes, and folk horror. You can usually find her with her dog, Rogers. There may be cheeseburgers involved.
