Actor Nolan North has been keeping busy these days. The voice actor who’s worked on some of the top games of 2011, including Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, Batman: Arkham City, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Assassin’s Creed Revelations, is already keeping busy for 2012. He’s bringing Nathan Drake to life in the PS Vita exclusive Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Now he reveals there’s a new role in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us game, which was just revealed at the Spike “Video Game Awards” (“VGAs”). North talks about the game and his new book, “Uncharted: Drake’s Journal – Inside the Making of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Journal”, in this exclusive interview.

Did you ask Naughty Dog if there’s a role in their new game, The Last of Us?

I don’t know. I’m not Joel. I would like to confirm that. Everybody’s like, “That’s Drake! Joel is just Drake with a daughter, and everybody’s dead.” I’m like, “Jesus, no! Joel Baker, he’s gonna be great, but he’s not Drake.”

Would you like to be in the game?

I hope so. We’ll see. I love Naughty Dog. I would love to jump in there and do anything that they might want me to do. The only thing I would want is for it to be something very different from Drake in doing something like that.

So no Drake cameo in The Last of Us?

I saw on a post somewhere somebody said, “Maybe Joel will run across some old crotchety guy, and it’ll be Drake years later.” I’m like, “No, that’s probably not going to happen.” I want to do something different. Actually, I should probably just tell you. Let’s just stop the rumors. I’m not Joel, but I actually am going to be playing the young girl. Let’s start that rumor. You and I can start that rumor. “Nolan North confirms he’s not Joel, but he is the young girl.” I don’t remember her name right now.

It’s Ellie.

That’s right. I’m gonna go for a real stretch with Ellie. I’ve been taking estrogen shots. Post that and say, “Psych. Now, buy the book.”

That should get some good traffic.

You can also write, “For all the people that don’t like Nolan North, buy the book and he will stop his quest for dominance to be every character in every game.”

How did you end up writing a book about Uncharted?

Quite frankly, I think a lot of people were, “He’s an actor. He’s writing a book.” I’ve got two degrees in journalism. This is what I did. This is what I was going to do for a living. This is where life pushed me, into acting; I don’t know how I even got here. I woke up, and I’m doing stuff. The industry elevated me to be able to do this for a living, and it’s a good living. God, I always hate to sound hokey, but I wanted to give back. I wanted to shed light on the people who really are responsible for making this stuff.

It’s great that you’re putting the focus on the game makers.

It is, and it’s genuine. I don’t want to sound like a dick; that’s the biggest thing. You say it out loud, and then you go, “Oh, God. Did I just say that?” But I mean it. These guys are my friends. I know a lot of these developers. You walk into their office, and there’s this genius who just programmed the ability for you to run, jump, and shoot at the same time asking you to sign his game copy. He’s like, “I’m a huge fan.” You sit there going, “I’m just an actor. I’m a schmuck. You’re a genius.” You’ve figured out how to make this thing shoot a rocket into space. It’s a different level of intelligence that these guys have.

About the Author

John Gaudiosi

Editor-in-Chief

John Gaudiosi has been covering videogames for the past 20 years for outlets like The Washington Post, CNET, Wired Magazine and CBS.com. He has focused on the convergence of entertainment and videogames for outlets like Video Business, Home Media Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Gamerlive.TV and is also a freelance game columnist for Reuters and writes for outlets like Forbes.com, NVISION, Official PlayStation Magazine, EGM Now, Geek Monthly, PrimaGames.com, and Yahoo! Games. John also serves as the video game expert for NBC in Washington D.C. and has produced videogame documentaries for The History Channel and Starz Entertainment. John was named one of the Top 50 Game Journalists in the world by Next-Gen.biz in 2007. He is the co-author of Scholastic Books' How to Get into Videogames, Prima Publishing's Madden: Twenty Years of Videogame Football and Electronic Arts: The Official History.