You may recognize Tati Gabrielle from hit video game adaptations like “Uncharted” and “The Last of Us” — or even as the face of the upcoming PS5 game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet — but she now has another under her belt with “Mortal Kombat II.”
“I was a Mortal Kombat fan growing up and my sister was a really big Mortal Kombat fan,” the actress told TheWrap of joining the sequel. “She’s 13 years older than me, born in the ’80s, very much a ’90s kid. She introduced me to Mortal Kombat and Jade was always my character I played as because she was the only one that looked like me, so I was able to see a lot of myself in her.”
“We’re presenting this thing that is beloved by fans, but it’s still a new version of it; it’s a version of it people haven’t seen. So I just knew that there’s a respect that needs to be given to these fans, they’re the reason why this is being made. There’s a nostalgia that’s owed to them,” she continued. “But we also have to remember, as humans, we don’t know what we love until we’ve seen it for the first time. For me, I know I loved Jade as a kid, so I know that I’m going to honor that to the best of my ability. So, hopefully, that feeling will transfer to the fans.”
Gabrielle’s filmography also includes “You,” “The 100,” “Kaleidoscope” and “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” to name a few, which means she’s had plenty of opportunity to show off her stunt work as a black belt in karate.
“I started doing martial arts very young. The stunt team, our stunt coordinator did not know that I had a martial arts background until I was fully cast. He was prepared to have my stunt double do most of the things. I remember we got into a friendly argument one day because he wouldn’t let me do some of the stunts that I really wanted to do. He was like, ‘Tati, I’m sorry, I’m just not used to an actress wanting to do her own stunts, but I’ll get used to it,’” she recalled. “I trained my whole life for this, particularly with the Bo staff. Though, I did have to learn a Chinese style for this, where previously I was familiar with Japanese, so that was quite the learning curve.”
Plus, the actress is happy to provide some biracial representation for the next generation of gamers and movie lovers (first introduced in 1993’s Mortal Kombat II, Jade becomes playable in 1995’s Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3).
“My sensei introduced us very young to Bruce Lee and Jet Li. I remember watching ‘Colombiana,’ seeing Zoe Saldaña — again, it was the first time that I could see myself in a character, her being a mixed race actress herself,” she shared. “I grew up in theater, so my first love was pure, heart-wrenching drama. I never intended to be an action star. I always had it in the back of my mind, because I do have this martial arts experience and I’m a black belt, I was like, ‘It would be really cool to do an action film one day.’ I didn’t realize that I’d be doing so much of it!”
“You don’t really get to choose your path through life, it kind of just folds in on itself in its own beautiful way,” Gabrielle concluded.
“Mortal Kombat II” is now playing in theaters, with the 2021 original streaming on HBO Max.
