GTA 5 actor offers advice to the GTA 6 cast: "the most important thing is that the fans are the game"

The GTA 5 voice actor behind Michael de Santa has offered his advice to the GTA 6 cast, urging them to enjoy their '15 minutes of fame', and make the most of the fandom's enthusiasm.

In an interview with IGN, Ned Luke was asked what advice he'd give to the actors behind GTA 6 protagonists Lucia and Jason. While neither actor has yet been revealed, Luke suggested they'd need to "get ready" for the wave of attention coming their way, especially now that video game characters can now look so realistic when compared to their actors.

"I don't know if they really have any idea what they're in for," Luke said, pointing out that while the three characters in GTA 5 do look like their actors, with "these characters, the graphics are so much better." According to Luke, that means that Lucia and Jason "are going to look exactly like" the actors playing them, "so they're going to be more recogniseable even than we were."

That realism, coupled with the way that social media has grown in the decade since GTA 5 came out, means that Luke thinks GTA 6 is going to be a massive moment for the new actors. With that in mind, he offers one very specific piece of advice, which he says is the same thing he told himself ten years ago: "Enjoy your 15 minutes for as long as you can. That 15 minutes might be ten years, like us, but enjoy that 15 minutes for as long as you can, because it's a rare thing."

Luke also discusses the importance of leaning into the fanbase, suggesting that "they need to remember, the most important thing is that the fans are the game. Not us, not Rockstar, the fans are the game. They're the ones who make it, they're the ones who make the billions of dollars for Rockstar. That would be my biggest piece of advice, is appreciate the fans. And when someone comes up and calls you Lucia or Jason, you don't go 'no no no, that's not me, he's a cartoon'."

That last line is a fairly pointed reference to Trevor actor Steven Ogg, who has made efforts to distance himself from the character, the opposite of the efforts made by the other two members of the GTA 5 trio. Regardless of Ogg's position, however, it's interesting to hear Luke discuss the need to put the community first, especially with GTA 6 still so far away. We're unlikely to find out who Lucia and Jason are portrayed by for some time yet, but it'll be interesting to see how Rockstar chooses to let the fanbase in between now and 2025.

Ned Luke also discussed how GTA 6's tone looks to be somewhere between GTA 4 and GTA 5.