Rockstar fans can turn the smallest loose thread into a full detective board, and this one gives them just enough to start pinning red strings again. A familiar face from Red Dead Redemption 2 has said he appears in Grand Theft Auto 6, but the detail sounds more like a quiet cameo than a hidden reveal about the game’s main story.
Jim Santangeli, who played Simon Pearson in Red Dead Redemption 2, reportedly told viewers during a TikTok livestream that he has a small part in Grand Theft Auto 6. Rockstar has not confirmed his casting, and Santangeli did not say who he plays, where he appears, or how much time his character gets.
Santangeli’s name will ring a bell for anyone who spent time around the Van der Linde camp. Pearson was the cook and butcher in Red Dead Redemption 2, the sort of supporting character who made the gang feel less like a mission hub and more like a tired, bickering group of people trying to survive together.
His reported GTA 6 role does not mean Pearson is somehow walking into Vice City. Rockstar has reused actors across projects before, and there is no reason to treat this as a crossover. The cleaner reading is that Santangeli has recorded or performed a minor role for the new game, separate from his work in Red Dead Redemption 2.
That is still enough to get fans curious, partly because Rockstar has said very little about the full cast. The studio has shown Jason, Lucia, and several supporting characters through trailers and promotional material, but most of Leonida’s voices are still being kept under wraps.
A minor part in Grand Theft Auto 6 does not automatically make Santangeli a major story figure. If anything, his own description makes the opposite sound more likely. This could be a shopkeeper, radio voice, mission contact, stranger, local criminal, or one of the dozens of odd people players run into once the world opens up.
Rockstar’s best worlds are packed with people who only need a few lines to leave a mark. A paranoid side character, a loud radio caller, a nervous witness, or a ridiculous local business owner can end up living in players’ heads for years.
For Grand Theft Auto 6, those smaller performances may matter even more because Leonida is being sold as a louder, stranger, more modern slice of Rockstar’s America. The main story will belong to Jason and Lucia, but the world around them needs voices that make every street, club, store, swamp, and backroom feel like trouble waiting to happen.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch on November 19, 2026, and the closer that date gets, the harder it becomes for every small detail to stay small.
Rockstar usually controls its marketing tightly, which means even a passing actor comment can feel bigger than it is. Fans are hungry for character names, cast details, gameplay systems, radio stations, side activities, and anything that makes the game feel less distant.
Santangeli’s reported role will probably not change anyone’s expectations for GTA 6. It does add a nice human detail to a release that is still mostly being discussed through trailers, delays, platforms, and map speculation.
For now, the safest way to read this is simple: a Red Dead Redemption 2 actor says he appears in Grand Theft Auto 6, but the role sounds small and Rockstar has not officially announced it.
That leaves the fun exactly where Rockstar likes it, somewhere between rumor, recognition, and waiting for the game to speak for itself. If Santangeli really is tucked away somewhere in Leonida, players will soon be listening for whether he is a quick joke, a passing voice, or one of those tiny Rockstar characters that somehow steals a whole scene.
