Max Payne's face was designed to Lake's likeness in the first installment of the series. Lake acted as Max Payne in the graphic novel cutscenes of the game because Remedy did not have enough money to hire real actors. Sami Järvi has made cameos in Max Payne 2 as various characters seen on in-game TV shows, such as Lords and Ladies and Address Unknown. Lake returned to the Max Payne franchise by co-writing the Max Payne 3 comics with Dan Houser and, along with the whole Remedy team, giving design pointers to Rockstar while playtesting Max Payne 3.