Real gang members were hired to voice characters in GTA: San AndreasIn the gritty streets of Los Santos, where virtual gangsters roam and digital drive-bys reign supreme, Rockstar Games apparently decided that fake thugs just wouldn’t cut it for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
In a surprising revelation, former Rockstar developer Lazlow Jones revealed that real-life gang members were actually recruited to record voiceovers for certain characters in the game.

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“One of the things that I’m really proud of is the level of authenticity that we would go for,” Jones says in an interview with Kinda Funny Games. He adds that the company would regularly fly out to record people with the accents they needed, saying: “If you need specific accents or languages, we’d travel to those places.”
“So the gang members in [GTA: San Andreas], those were real gang members that they recruited and to come do voice over. We brought them into the studio, we showed them the scripts and they were like ‘We wouldn’t say that, we wouldn’t say that, we’d say this.’”
It happened so frequently that the creators eventually told them to “just say what you would say.”

Released in 2004, GTA: San Andreas is the seventh title in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, following 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It is the best-selling PlayStation 2 game with 17.33 million units sold by 2009.
In related news, Tom Petty’s 1989 rock anthem Love is a Long Road is enjoying a resurgence since its inclusion in the GTA 6 launch trailer last December. In fact, Spotify tells BBC Newsbeat streams for the track have increased 36,979 percent in just one week – a feat that’s been a long time coming according to Mike Campbell, the co-founder and guitarist of Petty’s Heartbreakers band.
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