Rockstar protected GTA V secrets from actors, not even trusting the lead performers

Rockstar Games guarded the secrets of Grand Theft Auto 5 so strictly that even the lead actors never received the full script. Every page was protected with a watermark.

Ned Luke, who played Michael De Santa, revealed on a podcast that throughout his entire time working on GTA V, he was never once given the full story to read. Instead, the actor received small fragments of text so that none of the production participants could find out the entire plot in advance.

Rob Bogue and Julian Gamble, who played agents Steve Haines and Dave Norton, also took part in the conversation. According to them, scenes were recorded in random order with long breaks, which is why the actors sometimes did not even understand what point in the story they were at.

For secrecy, the project was given the codenames Rush and Paradise. Luke kept all the pages given to him as keepsakes. After finishing work, he had accumulated about 3,500 sheets. Each had a personal watermark that made it possible to identify the culprit of any leak.

Rob Bogue shared how once in New York, a strong gust of wind blew 25 pages of the secret script right out of his hands. The actor managed to catch only three sheets. He admitted that he nearly suffered a heart attack back then, thinking his career at Rockstar was over.

After such security measures during the development of GTA V, one can only wonder how strict the rules were on the set of GTA VI.