Actress Emily Rose may be best known for her role as Audrey Parker on SyFy's Haven, but for gamers, she'll always be Elena Fisher. The actress has portrayed the ever-independent journalist since the game series Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was released in 2007. Since then, the actress has appeared in all four of the third-person shooter games, including 2016's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. At the Game Awards in Los Angeles, Refinery29 spoke with Rose about her time on the series, and why she thinks Elena is a good role model.
Rose tells us that though she first portrayed Elena nine years ago, her love of video games was instilled in her from the time she was a kid.
"In a way, I was always a [gamer] kid," says Rose of her gaming experience prior to playing Elena. "I had to save up money for my first Game Boy... Playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater with my brother, then playing Halo with my youth-group guy friends... I've always loved video games, it's just how much time in the day you have to devote to them."
As a girl who loved the video game world, Rose says that it was refreshing to portray a character with whom she could identify.
"The thing I loved about playing Elena was that she was just a real girl. I think that a lot of times girls are very sexualized in games, and I just really liked that Elena never was. She was a really normal girl, and I enjoyed playing her."
Research shows that women are often portrayed in video games as sexual objects, which sets a bad precedent for the people (often young boys) who play them. Elena is, therefore, a breath of fresh air. Rose isn't the only one who admires how Uncharted serves Elena's character. Though Elena is technically the on-again, off-again girlfriend of Nathan in the series — a role that might often delegate her to supporting character at best, and eye candy at worst — TechTimes agrees that she's a "fully realized character" and the "unsung hero" of the series. She's smart, ambitious, and just as capable as Nate.
Video games may have the unfair rep of being "for the boys," but girl gamers have a real role model in Elena.
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