Major Gaines' actor T. Mike Gaines was an old fraternity brother of Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin. He was the only actor in the game who was not from Boston, Massachusetts, but instead flew out from Traverse City, Michigan to appear in the game. Gaines wanted to portray a large muscular character, but complications arose with how they increased the size of his sprites:


On top of this, the developers forgot to shoot still shots of his face, forcing them to fly him out to Boston a second time. However, by this time he had grown a goatee and insisted on leaving on small patch of it intact due to how long it took to grow in. This remnant of his goatee can be seen in most of Major Gaines' still shots in the final game.