Nolan North on Nathan Drake: 'That character is me'

Nolan North, the ubiquitous actor who's played a host of notable video game characters including Uncharted's Nathan Drake, Assassin's Creed's Desmond Miles, Martin Walker in Spec Ops: The Line and many more, told Eurogamer that he "became a better actor" when he started adding a bit of himself to every role.

North recounted the story of a failed audition that lead to his realization. In failure's wake, an acting coach friend suggested that he act as "Nolan the wedding planner, whose name happens to be Chet," rather than inventing Chet out of whole cloth for the audition.

"I became a better actor — on camera, voice-over-wise [and] everything — when I stopped trying to play a character and played me as that character," North said.

North used Nathan Drake, the character he's most associated with, to explain how and why the approach works.

"There is an amazing distinction when you realize that nobody else can play something the way you are, and you would be," he said. "I learned this before I started doing Nathan Drake and that's why this is so rewarding to me. That character is me. That's how in real-life — if Nolan North were this guy who's a treasure hunter with all these circumstances in my life — these things would naturally come out because I'm putting myself in that situation."