If there's anything Rockstar is known for, it's for quality: and for the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V, that means bringing in a level of authenticity to its characters, including the hiring of real-life gang members to voice their in-game gangsters.
As revealed by contributing writer, talk show host, and in-game DJ "Lazlow" Jones on Chicago's WGN radio station, Rockstar gets "these guys in to record the gang characters because we don't want a goofy LA actor who went to a fancy school trying to be a hard gang member. There's nothing worse than that, so just go find the real terrifying people and say 'can you come in here please?'"
And it seems to have worked in their favor, since sometimes these gang members are allowed to improvise for authenticity. According to Jones: "They look at the lines and say, 'I wouldn't say that,' so we say, 'OK, say what you would say.' Authenticity, you know?..."There's a lot of sessions where we would just throw the script on the floor. 'This is is irrelevant, let's just work on something real.'"
Rockstar apparently recruited a person to recruit the gang members, including "El Salvadorian gang dudes with amazing tattoos, one of which literally had gotten out of prison the day before."
Thousands of hours of audio have been recorded for the game, which will be releasing to the PS3 and Xbox 360 worldwide on September 17th. For more details, check out all of our GTA news. To preorder the game, check out the Grand Theft Auto V preorder page.