James McCaffrey, an actor who provided the voice of Max Payne in the popular video game series and most recently voiced Alex Casey in “Alan Wake 2,” died Sunday after a battle with cancer, Variety has confirmed with his manager. He was 65.
McCaffrey was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, according to TMZ, which first reported the news.
Before his career in video game voice acting, McCaffrey was a film and TV actor for more than 30 years. His first roles dated back to the late ’80s and early ’90s, with his breakout project being Fox’s police drama “New York Undercover.” He played the recurring role of Captain Arthur O’Byrne in Season 3. He then starred in the NBC action series “Viper,” when it originally ran for one season in 1994, and he returned for Season 4 when it was revived a few years later.
McCaffrey’s biggest role came on FX’s “Rescue Me” in 2004. He played firefighter James Xavier “Jimmy” Keefe, who died on Sept. 11 and was best friends and a cousin of Denis Leary’s main character Tommy Gavin. He appeared as a main character in the first three seasons and was a recurring player in the final four seasons. McCaffrey also appeared on shows like “Sex and the City,” “Suits,” “Blue Bloods,” “As the World Turns,” “Beautiful People,” “She’s Gotta Have It,” “Jessica Jones” and films like “The Orphan Killer,” “Camp Hope,” “Excuse Me for Living” and many more.
Video game fans knew McCaffrey’s voice as Max Payne, the gruff antihero from the popular third-person shooter series. He voiced Max in all of the character’s games: the original 2001 video game “Max Pane,” its sequel “Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne” (2003) and the final installment “Max Payne 3” (2012), for which McCaffrey also provided the motion capture. The series, created by Remedy Entertainment, was famous for its “bullet time” sequences, slow-motion, “Matrix”-esque shootout. Mark Wahlberg starred in a 2008 film adaptation, in which McCaffrey had a cameo.
McCaffrey voiced FBI agent Alex Casey in the original “Alan Wake” game in 2010 and this year’s sequel “Alan Wake 2,” which recently won best narrative, art direction and game direction at this month’s Game Awards. McCaffrey also had roles in “Control” (2019) and “Alone in the Dark” (2008).
He is survived by his wife Rochelle Bostrom and daughter Tiernan McCaffrey.