Tati Gabrielle, the star of Naughty Dog‘s upcoming Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, has revealed that she was given “bootcamp-ing” by Neil Druckmann due to the previous online backlash that The Last of Us: Part II received.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Gabrielle admitted that while she has seen a lot of positive comments, she did receive her fair share of negative feedback from people online, including racist and misogynist comments. Laura Bailey, who portrayed Abby Anderson in The Last of Us Part II, was subject to similar treatment for her role in the Naughty Dog sequel, hence why Druckmann has prepared Gabrielle for her part in Intergalactic.
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Neil’s been bootcamp-ing me. I know Troy [Baker]’s experience, I know Ashley [Johnson]’s experience…I know Laura Bailey’s experience.
I got a lot of love, but there was a lot of hate over me being a woman, me being a woman of colour, me having my head shaved, all these things that I didn’t even actually initially see. I’m out of the social media zeitgeist for that reason – but once I did, Neil [Druckmann] was like, ‘Ignore it. No matter what, me and you, we’re going to make something beautiful. We’re going to make something that we’re proud of.’
Gabrielle hasn’t worked on a video game until now, but she has been involved in projects related to two Naughty Dog IPs on TV and film, as she starred in the Uncharted movie and currently plays Nora in HBO’s The Last of Us.
Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is currently in development for PS5, and Druckmann commented earlier this year that they’re already playing a build of the game at the office and described it as ‘incredible.’ We’re going to have to wait a while to get our hands on it though, as Naughty Dog isn’t reportedly planning on launching Intergalactic until 2027 at the earliest.
[Source – Entertainment Weekly via Eurogamer]