GTA 5 Characters: Michael, Franklin, Trevor and the Key Cast

GTA 5 was the first game in the series built around three playable leads instead of one, and the whole story turns on how badly they get along. Here are the characters who matter — the trio, the villains pulling their strings, and the supporting cast you will keep running into across Los Santos and Blaine County.

The Three Protagonists

Michael De Santa (played by Ned Luke) is a former bank robber living under a new identity after a deal with the FIB let him fake his way out of the life. Wealthy, miserable and bored in his Rockford Hills mansion, he drifts back into crime when his money and his family start slipping away — and his past catches up with him.

Franklin Clinton (Shawn Fonteno) is a young repo man from Strawberry who wants more than gang work and dead-end jobs. A repossession gone wrong introduces him to Michael, who becomes an unlikely mentor, teaching Franklin the heist trade while Franklin repeatedly pulls him out of trouble.

Trevor Philips (Steven Ogg) is Michael's old partner, who spent nine years believing Michael was dead. Volatile, violent and running Trevor Philips Enterprises out of Sandy Shores, he is the wild card of the trio — and the one whose reunion with Michael sets the whole story in motion.

The Main Antagonists

• Devin Weston (Jonathan Walker) — the game's primary villain, a billionaire investor who uses the trio for unpaid, illegal work, then betrays them and threatens Michael's family.
• Steve Haines (Robert Bogue) — a corrupt FIB agent and TV personality who blackmails all three protagonists into doing the Bureau's dirty work off the books.
• Wei Cheng (George Cheung) — head of the Los Santos Triads, whose push into Blaine County puts him on a collision course with Trevor.
• Harold "Stretch" Joseph (Hassan Johnson) — an old associate of Franklin and Lamar whose loyalties quietly shift after his release from prison.

Key Supporting Characters

• Lester Crest (Jay Klaitz) — the planner behind every big score. "The guy in the chair" scopes targets, assembles crews and gives Franklin the assassination jobs that move the stock market.
• Lamar Davis (Slink Johnson) — Franklin's best friend and worst influence: loyal, funny and constitutionally incapable of staying out of trouble.
• Dave Norton (Julian Gamble) — the FIB agent who brokered Michael's deal, and the increasingly nervous middleman between Michael and Haines.
• Amanda, Jimmy and Tracey De Santa — Michael's wife and children, whose spending, laziness and near-misses supply half of Michael's motivation and most of his headaches.
• Ron Jakowski and Wade Hebert (David Mogentale and Matthew Maher) — Trevor's Sandy Shores crew. It is Wade who digs up the inconvenient truth that Michael De Santa is alive and living in Los Santos.
• Chop — Lamar's Rottweiler, who ends up living with Franklin. You can walk him, play fetch, and briefly play as him during missions when he is tracking a scent.

Dozens of smaller names fill out the world beyond these — Simeon Yetarian, who gives Franklin his first repo jobs; Michael's therapist Dr. Friedlander; Franklin's aunt Denise; and a long tail of strangers, freaks and one-scene oddballs. But the story really belongs to the ten or so above: three criminals, the men exploiting them, and the handful of people trying to keep them alive.