R.I.P. James McCaffrey, character actor and star of Max Payne and Alan Wake 2
McCaffrey, who also had a regular role on Rescue Me, was 65.
Aux News Max Payne
Actor James McCaffrey who had such a long career in live-action that people might not even realize he was an iconic video game voice actor (or vice versa), has died. TMZ, which first confirmed the news, says that he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma and that he died on Sunday while “surrounded by friends and family.” McCaffrey was 65.
McCaffrey’s most iconic role came more than 20 years ago when he provided the voice of Max Payne, the ultimate hardboiled cop character, in his eponymous video game series from Remedy Entertainment (Payne’s face in the first two games, with his iconic scowl, was modeled after writer and future Remedy creative director Sam Lake). McCaffrey continued to do Payne’s voice, with an inhuman growl and a love for world-weary pontificating, in Max Payne’s two sequels, and he reunited with Remedy for 2019’s Control—this time providing a face and a voice to the mysterious Zachariah Trench. He also had a cameo in the Max Payne movie.
But just this year McCaffrey returned to the video game spotlight with a co-starring role in Remedy’s Alan Wake 2, paying off a vocal cameo in the first game by providing the voice of two different men named Alex Casey (one is a fictional hardboiled cop character in-universe who is obviously supposed to be Max Payne, the other is a real FBI agent who resents sharing a name and face with the fake detective, and both are present throughout the whole story and crucial the plot).
Lake, who provided Casey’s face in Alan Wake 2 (thereby maintaining a decades-long bond between the two of them), called McCaffrey a “brilliant actor” and said “no one could do what he did better than him” on social media.
In live-action, McCaffrey would be best recognized as Jimmy Keefe, the cousin of Denis Leary’s firefighter character on FX’s Rescue Me. Jimmy died on 9/11 before the events of the show and regularly appeared as a ghost throughout the series, usually to torment Leary’s Tommy Gavin and force him to learn some kind of lesson about being less of an asshole.
McCaffrey also appeared on Blue Bloods, Suits, Viper, New York Undercover, Jessica Jones, and Sex And The City. He is survived by his wife and daughter.
6 Comments
I am bummed beyond belief. Probably one of my favorite video game actors, even if his portfolio there was pretty slim, but his unique voice and charisma gave a unique soul to every single one.And Max Payne 3 is just a tour de force by the guy. Absolutely stellar performance and something we’d be wanking about if it was in a TV show, not a video game that flopped commercially.I’m fucking heartbroken. Glad we got him for one more ride in Alan Wake 2. It’s so sad it’s the last one.
He’s absolutely sensational in Alan Wake 2. Hell, he was sensational in Max Payne. Sensational in Control.
This man could monologe like no other. Holy shit was he good at taking any dialogue and making it the most noir hard boiled stuff. Also could nail comedy, so many amusing lines in Max Payne 1 like Niagara cause you cry a lot to the your in a video game scene. Max Payne 2 is for me the best one but he was fantastic from beginning to end. I’m glad he got to appear in one more Remedy game and I’m sorry he won’t be here for the Max Payne remake. Fare thee well James.
Max Payne was the first time that I realised that holy shit, games can actually have good actors in ‘em. There’s only one thing for it.
The past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper, more terrible it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. But it’s like looking down into the grave of your love. Or kissing the mouth of a gun, a bullet trembling in its dark nest, ready to blow your head off.
and Rest in peace, Jim Ladd, The Last DJ.