Nolan North
Nolan North
Nolan Ramsey Northis an American actor who has been described as "the nearest thing the games industry has to a bona fide leading man." His voice work includes characters such as Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series, Desmond Miles from the Assassin's Creed video game series, Ghost from the Bungie title Destiny, the Penguin in the Batman: Arkham video game franchise, Cpt. Martin Walker in Spec Ops: The Line, David in The Last of Us, several characters in various pieces...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionVoice Actor
Date of Birth31 October 1970
CityNew Haven, CT
CountryUnited States of America
I revel in my anonymity. But when I'm at a specific event and gamers are there, they'll recognise me.
Because Naughty Dog relies on their facial team to hand animate the faces of each game character and they do such a remarkable job, I think you can be more realistic with your acting. It gives the story and what's happening to you the feeling that it's a game.
When we did the first 'Uncharted,' we weren't able to capture the audio with the performances. We would go back and do A.D.R. - Automated Dialogue Replacement - in which you would hear yourself and then repeat your line. Even when we were doing that, there was a slight disconnect because you were trying to recreate a performance.
My first motion capture game was with Sony - 'NBA: The Life.' It was very ahead of its time. Brandon Akiaten, he was the writer and director. He had a real vision of what this game was meant to be; it was a basketball game where I was the Jerry Maguire sports agent type guy. And it was great!
I studied journalism at The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. I did my graduate work at Emerson in Boston, and I was actually a reporter for a year in New York and New Jersey. It dawned on me that I wasn't cut out for that line of work. I mean... there's a certain thing that really good reports have that I just didn't.
The tailor from 'Avatar' actually made my suit for 'Uncharted 3.' And no, it's not a hand-me-down from Sam Worthington. My 11-year-old would fit in Sam Worthington's. I'm 6' 1", 180 pounds.