Michael De Santa

Michael De Santa, formerly Michael Townley, is one of the three protagonists in GTA 5, along with Franklin and Trevor. He is voiced by Ned Luke.

Childhood and adolescence
Michael De Santa, born Michael Townley in 1965, was born into a tough life somewhere in the Midwest in a trailer park. Michael's father wasn't in the picture. It is unclear who raised Michael, however whoever did changed their stories about Michaels father constantly, claiming he skipped town, was hit by a train, or joined the navy. Later in life Michael claims the stories changed so many times he had lost track. At some point in his childhood he became a fan of sports, specifically golf, tennis and football and took tennis classes as a child.

He eventually joined the football team when he reached high school. However, after his early promise as a high school footballer ended for unknown reasons, he turned to crime as it was now his only opportunity in life

Late teens, early adulthood
Over time Michael meets and works with various criminals preforming small jobs. Before he is 20 he had already been to prison twice for unspecified reasons. In 1985 Michael finds work from an elderly contact, who wants something "hot" smuggled into Canada. The elderly man contacts another small operation ran by a young pilot named Trevor Philips who had his own small air freight operation in North Yankton and a borrowed Beagle plane. A meet is set for Michael and Trevor to deliver the unknown package into Canada in the next few days.

The events of the situation are unspecified and mysterious, however the day of the delivery, something happened between Michael and the elderly contact. It has not yet been revealed what. The elderly contact chased Michael all the way to Trevor's airstrip. Trevor sees this and immediately becomes suspicious as he is only expecting one vehicle to show up. Michael pulls up first and exits the car running towards Trevor, followed by the frantic old man. Playing "peacemaker" Trevor shoots off a flare gun at the old man, and ends up killing him as it enters his head through his eye.

The altercation goes unexplained by Michael as Trevor doesn't state any reasoning behind it when talking about the events later. However it can be assumed that Michael stole something from the man, possibly intending on taking the cargo for himself and giving no profit to the employer. Michael and Trevor decided to take the unspecified cargo into Canada, and they bring the body of the old man into the plane, dumping him out of a plane into a lake. While in the plane, the flare had still been burning in the mans head, and Trevor states the Beagle never smelt the same again. Upon landing in Canada, both Trevor and Michael vomited when getting out of the plane, Trevor labels it as "quite a baptism." and soon their friendship was cemented.

Trivia

 * When walking, Michael is slightly slower than Franklin and Trevor, this might be due t being retired and not as active as he used to be when he was young. His voice and motion-capture performer Ned Luke even put on 25 pounds to replicate this.


 * After firing a pistol and starting to run and/or walk he will be holding the pistold in both of his hands, unlike Franklin and Trevor.
 * Michael has unique and terrifying reactions when hitting a family member with a car.
 * Michael sleeps for the shortest time of the three portagonists. When saving the game with Michael, the game skips ahead 6 hours. Franklin sleeps for 8 hours, while Trevor sleeps for 12. During the time that he lives alone after his family move out, one of his switch scenes will show him waking up screaming and pointing a gun around. He may possibly suffer from nightmares, which could explain his short sleeping time compared to Trevor and Franklin.