The "Grand Theft Auto" Protagonists and Their Real Life Counterparts

Rockstar has always taken inspiration for the Grand Theft Auto series from the world around us. From classic crime heist films like Heat and Reservoir Dogs.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Rockstar has always taken inspiration for the Grand Theft Auto series from the world around us.

From classic crime heist films like Heat and Reservoir Dogs to the hyper-violent headlines of everyday news, the series has never shied away from exlpoiting reality. 

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, presented dozens of nods to real world parallels of violence. The Haitian/Cuban gang war depicted in Vice City took inspiration from the cocaine cowboys that terrorized Miami in the early 80s.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas looked to the early 90s explosion of West Coast hip-hop in film and music for its inspiration. And throughout all of these titles the main protagonists were always some amalgamation of fictional incarnation and real world criminal. Like the games themselves, the protagonists were a blend of the real and the imagined.

Here are The "Grand Theft Auto" Protagonists and Their Real Life Counterparts

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Grand Theft Auto III and Claude

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GTA: Vice City Stories and Victor "Vic" Vance

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Liberty City Stories and Toni Cipriani

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GTA: The Lost and Damned and "Johnny" Klebitz

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The Ballad of Gay Tony and Luis Fernando Lopez

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Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and CJ Johnson

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Grand Theft Auto IV and Niko Bellic

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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Tommy Vercetti

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