When actor Sophia Ali stepped into the shoes of Chloe Frazer, a fearless, badass treasure hunter in “Uncharted,” she felt unstoppable.
“I’m surprised I fit into rooms to be honest. I was on such a high,” she told Variety. “I was playing Chloe’s video game [‘Uncharted: The Lost Legacy’] while I was shooting because I wanted it to be special. I genuinely was like, ‘I’m Chloe, nothing can touch me. I’m untouchable.’”
While undergoing daily, eight-hour strength and endurance training for the physical, stunt-heavy role, parts of Chloe stuck with Ali in real life, even in unlikely, everyday situations.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been that strong before. When I had groceries to carry, I wasn’t thinking about ‘Is this going to be heavy? Do I have to come back for two rounds?’” she joked.
After starring in last year’s indie “India Sweets and Spices,” Amazon’s drama series “The Wilds” and playing Dr. Dalia Qadri on “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Uncharted” marks Ali’s biggest role yet. The film is based on the video game series of the same name, which stars Nathan Drake, a quippy, globe-trotting treasure hunter. Sony’s adaptation tells an original story about Drake’s early adventuring days and introduces audiences to a younger hero, played by “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland. While hunting for a lost, ancient artifact, Drake meets fellow duplicitous treasure hunters like Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), Ali’s Chloe, Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas) and Jo Braddock (Tati Gabrielle).
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When Ali got her role, she hadn’t played the “Uncharted” video games before, but her brothers quickly schooled her on the series’ popularity.
“I have two younger brothers who are big gamers. They talked about it and loved the games,” she said. “I’ve seen them play it, and I played it after I got [the role] and loved it. I’m terrible but it was fun.”
Ali blazed through the “Uncharted” series on her brothers’ PlayStation 4, then received her very own console from Sony after she started filming. Chloe is introduced in “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” as an ally and romantic interest to Drake, but she seemingly betrays him and switches to a rival treasure hunter’s team. However, she double crosses them and helps Drake with his mission, and then she appears again in “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception” to lend a helping hand early in the game.
In the “Uncharted” movie, Wahlberg’s Sully and Ali’s Chloe have a shaky history that makes their partnership full of suspicion. He seeks her out in Barcelona to reluctantly help with his and Drake’s hunt for gold, but secretly she’s looking to nab the treasure for herself.
“I relate to Chloe a little bit. I’m pretty independent, and I don’t necessarily think being selfish is a bad thing because I’m the only one looking out for myself. Chloe sort of has that same mentality,” Ali said. “I don’t think because her actions are harmful to Drake that makes her a bad person. She doesn’t trust anyone, and she doesn’t know [Drake] very well. I never really felt like she was evil, so doing the ‘evil’ things she did felt rooted in a more vulnerable place.”
Sony
Along the way, Drake, Sully and Chloe end up in a shootout aboard a massive cargo plane that jettisons its luggage thousands of feet above the sea. The death-defying sequence is inspired by a similar level in “Uncharted 3,” and, naturally, the characters find themselves hurtling through the air and scrambling to find parachutes. The plane scene is one of the most iconic in the “Uncharted” games, and it was one of Ali’s favorite to shoot.
“I felt the coolest during the plane cargo scene where I’m shooting these mercenaries. It felt so much like the game, more than any other action sequence did. It just felt so Chloe, plus it was so cool to shoot a gun. [The actors] were attached to rigs, so I’m shooting a gun and they’re just flying away,” she said.
Video game fans loved Chloe so much that she got her own spinoff game, titled “Uncharted: The Lost Legacy” in 2017. Alongside “Uncharted 4” villain Nadine Ross, who inspires the film’s antagonist Braddock, Chloe travels to India in search of a lost artifact. It was the first “Uncharted” game to feature a female protagonist, and it was remastered for the PlayStation 5 last month along with “Uncharted 4” due to their popularity.
“I really hope young women walk away feeling empowered by watching her,” Ali said. “[Chloe and Braddock] are both so strong and capable, and we’re both colored women. You don’t really get to see two examples of colored women so strong and different like that on screen.”
“Uncharted” finally swings into theaters Feb. 18, bringing the video game to life after more than a decade in development. And even though Ali’s brothers are hard to impress — as younger siblings usually are — they’ve already booked tickets to see her on the big screen.
“They’re too cool for school a lot. I can’t even say they got excited for [my role]; they were just like ‘Yeah, okay. That’s good. This is a good thing.’ Everything else is just like ‘Uhh, stupid.’ They’re my biggest critics,” she said, adding a silver lining. “One of them told me he already got tickets, which was really sweet.”