Trevor Philips

Background: What is known about Trevor's background is highly speculative and comes from his own words. Trevor was born and raised in Canada, near the border with the United States, or, as he calls it, the "Canadian border region of America". He claims he "grew up in five states, two countries", in "fourteen different homes", "three care homes", "two correctional facilities", with "eight fathers", and "one beautiful, damaged flower of a mother".

As a child, he had a history of rage issues and violent impulses that ruined his attempts to fit into society. He claims that, in a fit of rage, he sodomized his hockey coach with a hockey stick[5] and at some point he strangled a clarinet player with his own instrument. He also claims to have killed various animals and "drifters" even during the early years of his life.

Trevor's childhood itself was an unhappy one. His father was physically abusive towards him, while his mother was emotionally abusive, overbearing, treated him with condescension and saw him as a "useless boy" who cared little about his mother. When he was a child, Trevor's father abandoned him in a shopping mall, which Trevor later burned down in retaliation. Trevor also had a brother named Ryan, whom Trevor was not fond of. Ryan died in an "accident" prior to 2013.

Trevor dropped out of school, which possibly explains why he has a lack of some basic knowledge, such as the location of ancient Rome, which he thought was a part of America. He also reveals that he has problems with grammar and "improvises" when it comes to punctuation. It is possible that he had some formal education, as he mentions during police chases that he took a night class in criminal law (however, this could be sarcasm). Trevor has good mathematical skills, being able to accurately calculate the price of four tons of gold in a matter of seconds. When playing golf, Trevor says that he was the Canadian under-18 Champion and "almost turned pro". Later in his life, Trevor discovered that he had a talent for flying jets. He enlisted in the air force to fly fighter jets, but several days prior to completing his training and becoming a licensed pilot, Trevor was deemed mentally unstable by the "witch" in charge of psychological evaluations, thus resulting in Trevor's discharge and grounding for life. It was implied his discharge was due to his psychological relationship with his mother.

Early Criminal Life: After being discharged from the military, Trevor became a drifter and committed petty crimes along the border with no particular goal in mind. He never committed any serious crimes until he met Michael Townley around age 20 (circa late 1980s), escorting cargo across the border.

He was waiting on the runway to meet his employer and saw not one but two dust trails coming up the road, despite the fact that he was told there would be only one person meeting them (though he admitted that he didn't know enough about the cargo business at the time to 'check references'). Michael exited the first car while a man whom Michael previously carjacked exited the other, yelling at them. Trevor shot off a flare gun he was carrying into the second man's eye, killing him. He and Michael both dumped the body into a lake afterwards. The flare was still burning from the inside of his head as they dropped him off, causing the pair to throw up. After the incident, Trevor and Michael became friends and started a criminal partnership together.

Trevor's first job involved robbing a place that cashed checks. However, he was caught because the clerk turned out to be someone who knew him, resulting in him serving four months of a six-month sentence. After Trevor was released, he and Michael committed many robberies all over the midwest, though Michael's recognizable quoting of lines from Solomon Richards's movies, and Trevor's habit to snap and murder people in broad daylight often kept them on the run. At some point, Trevor met Brad Snider, who would often join Trevor and Michael and commit robberies together, along with a contact named Lester Crest and a few other associates. Michael and Brad did not trust or like each other, but Trevor got along with Brad to a certain degree. Over time, Michael developed a relationship with and married a stripper named Amanda, eventually having two kids, Tracey and Jimmy. This created some friction between the criminals, due to Michael spending more and more time with his new family and less with his criminal activities. Despite this, Trevor began to see himself as an uncle to the couple's children, even vowing to avenge Tracy should anyone 'wrong her'. Over the following years, Michael became more cautious as a criminal because he saw himself having more to lose should he be imprisoned or killed, which led Trevor to believe Michael was going "soft". Trevor told Brad about his beliefs, to which Brad suggested that they cut off Michael and work only with each other. Trevor declined, believing he should stay loyal to Michael.

The last time Trevor would see Michael for nine years.

Trevor and Michael remained partners in crime until they undertook an ill-fated heist in 2004 alongside Brad and a getaway driver in Ludendorff, North Yankton. Secretly, Michael made an agreement with corrupt FIB agent Dave Norton to exit his life of crime and start over with his family in Los Santos. The plan involved the group robbing a cash depot, followed by them making their way to a rendezvous point, where Dave would shoot Trevor and pretend to shoot Michael, who would then pretend to be buried at the Ludendorff Cemetery, before actually moving to Los Santos with his family. The heist initially ran relatively smoothly until two security guards were killed, the second one by Trevor as he held Michael at gunpoint, and the arrival of the police which the group had to fight through, barely managing to get to their getaway car. As they drove to the rendezvous point, where they were told a helicopter was waiting for them, their driver was killed by the police and Michael was forced to take the wheel. Their plan was scuppered after their vehicle was struck by an oncoming train at a railroad crossing and destroyed. Michael insisted that they stick to the plan, and they began walking in search of the helicopter. They were then ambushed by Dave Norton, who fired at the trio, missing Trevor and fatally wounding Brad instead, before shooting again and "injuring" Michael. Trevor refused to leave his friends behind and attempted to fight off the police until a weary Michael told him to save himself, and Trevor reluctantly made his escape.

As a result of the failed heist, both Trevor and Michael wrongly believed one another to be dead. Trevor was not able to get access to his savings because of his identity being blown, but regardless managed to evade the police for several years and made a new life for himself in the rural town of Sandy Shores, San Andreas. There, he developed an addiction to crystal meth and founded a small criminal business empire with new-found partners Ron Jakowski, a paranoiac conspiracy theorist, and Chef, a meth cook. The business, named Trevor Philips Enterprises, specialized in arms smuggling and the cooking and sales of crystal methamphetamine. During Trevor's time in Sandy Shores, he affiliated himself with the Aztecas gang, the redneck hillbilly O'Neil brothers, and high-ranked members of The Lost MC, including the club's leader, Johnny Klebitz. However, the latter's relationship was particularly strained due to Trevor's tendency to occasionally have sex with Johnny's girlfriend, Ashley Butler, in exchange for meth payments, much to Johnny's chagrin.

In 2012, Wade Hebert, Daisy Bell, Kush-Chronic, and several others stopped in Sandy Shores to buy drugs while on their way to "the gathering". They met Trevor, who took the group, save Wade, to a nearby quarry and is implied to have murdered them. Wade never figured out what happened to his friends and decided to stay in Sandy Shores, joining Trevor's criminal empire.

Personality: Trevor has been described as a difficult person to deal with: extreme, impetuous, vengeful, psychopathic, unhinged, unpredictable, untamed, infamous, homicidal, and prone to violent outbursts and destructive rampages. He does everything in a sociopathic and relentless manner, (much different from Michael). Although Trevor is like this, he is honest about it and will never show hypocrisy. He has his own charm along with his own principles. However, Dan Houser has confirmed that Trevor "may not be all he seems" and is still "too horrible" to be a hero of any kind. He is also quite insecure about being born in Canada, and takes offense to people mocking his accent. Almost all of his Rampages are caused by Trevor flying into rage over being mocked over his Canadian accent. During a mission, Ron asks Trevor about his business dealings in Canada, resulting in Trevor getting defensive and demands for Ron to clarify. Ron hastily corrects himself by asking about Trevor's business dealings in North Yankton "along the Canadian border", defusing a possible violent outburst from Trevor, thus showing his insecurity for being Canadian. Also, while hanging out with Michael and Franklin, Michael will sometimes remark "You're not even American." during a conversation. Somewhat enraged, Trevor will reply "I am! Fuck you!" and Michael will respond with "Whatever you say, eh." mocking Trevor's accent. This further shows his insecurity about being Canadian.

Trevor's mere presence always puts others on edge due to his extremely short temper and unpredictable, impulsive behaviour. Ron, who is one of Trevor's friends and an unlikely one at that, is constantly terrified of him and frequently tries to appease Trevor whenever he can, especially if he is close to getting angry. Michael is also wary of him when they reunite, stepping in front of his son to protect him. Despite Ron's fear and Trevor's psychopathic behaviour, they do seem to show a level of trust to each other as Trevor usually tasks Ron to do a few missions for him such as blowing up the Lost MC fuel tank and helping him drop off cargo via a plane, as well as running Trevor Philips Enterprises in his absence. Wade, another friend, is equally scared of Trevor. Though Trevor torments and punches Wade often, this bullying extends to Wade's cousin, Floyd, as well. Even strangers who have seen very little of him can be put off by his presence, shown when he instantly put Fabien on edge despite not even knowing him in the opening cutscene for the mission "Fame or Shame". In the Merryweather Heist, he gets angry quickly when his score is compromised. In the offshore ending, he gets so angry that he rams his face onto a wooden board and repeatedly smashes his face on it. His personality is stated to be partly based on that of legendary English prisoner Charles Bronson, also known as "the most violent prisoner in Britain". He is a man known for his sudden violent outbursts which have earned him fame.

Trevor can be said to be a true psychopath, as he easily kills with no remorse, has the typical parental issues (abandoned by his father and sensitive about his mother), is a pyromaniac, frequently abducts people and takes them to the Altruist Cult (the cult in question is implied to be made up of cannibalistic killers of which Trevor seems to be aware of) which he calls his "friends in the mountains" and has the habit of making sadistic jokes about his victims. For example, Trevor makes a joke about the piece of Johnny Klebitz's brain left under his boot after he killed him, and telling Elwood O'Neil over the phone that Elwood had "too many brothers" and that they needed "culling". When Trevor kills Johnny, he demands that Johnny get up to face him, apparently unaware that he killed him. It is extremely unlikely that he cared though due to his plans to get rid of The Lost and how enraged he was with Johnny. In contrast with this behaviour however, is his protectiveness of Michael's family and his apparent grief when he thought Michael was dead, which shows a level of emotion not common in most sociopaths as they usually have little to no positive emotions for other people. In addition to this he refused to leave Michael in the prologue, while he was on the ground after being shot. Trevor seems to only care about the people very close to him and he can be truly loyal to them, which specifically includes his mother, Patricia Madrazo, Maude, Michael, and later on even Franklin and Lamar. Brad's death affected him harshly, leaving him to blame Michael for what happened nine years ago back in North Yankton.

In contrast with his heavily sociopathic behaviour, he has shown many times how needy he is for love and care. He tells Michael repeatedly how much he mourned him, to the point that he got a memorial tattoo with Michael's name on it. As he was being confronted by Floyd and Debra, he told them how much he wanted to be with them. His relationship with Patricia was also a display of true love and, in his words, he enjoyed a lot the time spent with her.

Despite his weak relationship with Amanda and having a strained friendship with Michael, Trevor surprisingly cares for Jimmy and Tracey, viewing them as surrogate niece and nephew. Evidence of his caring is chasing Lazlow Jones when he does a sexual pose against Tracey as she performs a stripper-like dance and forcing him to take off his pants and dance in his underwear. Also, he will not allow Jimmy to drink alcohol when hanging out with him. Despite this, Trevor will insult Jimmy and Tracey when he encounters them outside of missions.

Trevor also seems to sometimes dwell on respect. When Wade calls Ashley a "bitch", Trevor asks him if he thinks it's clever to disrespect women. He also often tells some of his friends to show some respect to himself, and sometimes even others. In the mission Trevor Philips Industries, despite Chef worrying about the arrival of the Aztecas at the meth lab, Trevor still orders him to show manners to Tao Cheng and his translator who want to see the meth lab operation, calling them as their "guests". When Wade is covered in sewage, Wade's cousin suggests to call the heist off, but Trevor responds by telling him to respect Wade for what he went through and so he should carry on with the heist.

Despite his heartless behaviour, Trevor possesses an awareness for guilt. This is seen in the Strangers and Freaks mission Minute Man Blues in which Manuel, one of the innocent men captured by Trevor and the Civil Border Patrol members Joe and Josef on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant in the previous mission An American Welcome, stands up to Trevor fearlessly despite the latter pointing a gun at him, and claims he and his family have migrated to America since more than 200 years ago, saying that he is more American than Trevor is. He criticizes Trevor for disregarding civil rights with "Trevor's friends", who are harassing innocent legal immigrants and, in Trevor's case, in return for money. He adds that, unlike the Civil Border Patrol, he will not give Trevor a single cent for helping him to stop the Civil Border Patrol. Fueled by this and Trevor having already felt the Civil Border Patrol's actions were indeed illegal, he storms into a rage and hunts down and puts an end to the Civil Border Patrol once and for all. Also, when Trevor runs over a main character, he will often scream "No!" in panic, although he may instead blame the person for being in his way in an unconcerned way.

Trevor uses threats of sexual violence to show his dominance over other men, as well as enjoying making them uncomfortable. Many of his sarcastic remarks have been misinterpreted as sincere statements by players. He seems to take it a step further with Floyd, as there are many things that suggest a sexual relationship. Notably, if the player switches to Trevor during his stay at Floyd’s condo, sometimes Trevor can be seen looking over Floyd as he lays in the fetal position wearing women's clothing, uttering an apology to Debra while sobbing. However this could just be Trevor showing his dominance by humiliating Floyd. Also, if the player chooses to catch Ralph Ostrowski, Trevor implies that he sexually abused men while in prison. It should be noted that this behaviour is only present when in the presence of weak people such as Ron, Wade, Floyd, and a meth addicted Johnny Klebitz.

On the other hand, he respects and encourages bravery on his friends and partners in crime. During job preparations, he often tends to taunt and call out anyone who shows a sign of doubt, fear or weakness, and when they get back angrily at him, Trevor applauds and approves their reaction as a way to man them up.

In direct contrast to his erratic and chaotic nature, Trevor also appears to be highly intelligent and somewhat cultured. Although seemingly lacking of refined tastes, Trevor speaks in the most eloquent manner out of all three protagonists, utilizing elaborate and complex vocabulary as well as displaying a surprisingly dry wit. It must be noted that having studied 4 years at a military academy, Trevor is the only GTA protagonist to date with a college degree, possibly explaining his use of complex vocabulary and hinting at a sophisticated nature that he might or might not be intentionally masking. Trevor is incredibly focused and professional on the jobs at hand, displaying a surprising capacity for calculation and planning, even under duress and in highly chaotic situations. He can follow the plans strictly and also he has proven to have great ideas for big jobs and lead them successfully, These include stealing the drug stashes belonging to many dangerous groups and stealing a multi-million secret weapon from a heavily armed security group. However, these operations were failures since they lacked a prior careful inspection and were performed hastily (one being a police sting, the other putting the crew in extreme danger worldwide).

Trevor has shown some hints that he feels genuine sexual attraction towards men too, besides his normal sexually dominant behaviour towards weaker men. He showed certain interests in the "stag do running man" random encounter. While picking up a couple of hitchhikers, the very inebriated couple begins to have sex as Trevor drives the vehicle. He offers to join in and perform fellatio on the boyfriend. In the mission I Fought the Law..., Trevor touches the private parts of one of the guys as he's dressed as a policeman. During a drinking outing with Franklin, he admits he has previously performed fellatio on men (I'd rather suck a dick than smoke weed... and trust me, I've done both!). In another conversation during an outing with Michael and Franklin at the same time, he admits he's bisexual after Franklin asked him whether he's gay or not.

Trevor is shown to be disgusted by racism, misogyny, as well as self-righteous and hypocritical attitudes which he considers "fake". He criticizes the Minute Men and the LSPD for their racist behaviour, reprimands Wade for his remarks toward Ashley, and threatens Martin for mistreating Patricia. After torturing Ferdinand Kerimov, he mocks the FIB's use of torture as a means of interrogation, claiming it is only a method of showing dominance and that the government fails to admit this. In one of his character switch scenes, he can even be throwing a Lost MC member off a bridge for being a bigot.

While it is never stated in-game, Trevor shows textbook signs of Intermittent Explosive Disorder: a mental condition which includes episodes of impulsive behaviour that could result in serious damage to anyone and anything around them, aggression grossly disproportionate to what provoked it, and episodic violence that cannot be categorized with any other existing mental and physical medical condition.

Trevor also appears to suffer from Coulrophobia, since in Grass Roots mission for Barry, dialogue suggests that Trevor once was or still is scared of clowns, saying such things as "I'm a big boy now" and "you can't hurt me anymore" (paraphrasing). He might also ask the clowns, "Are there any more sex offenders out there!?" This implies that, as a child, Trevor was sexually assaulted by a clown, thus causing his fear of clowns. Additionally, when the player gets Lamar, Franklin, and Trevor to hang out together off-mission, Franklin will mention he's sitting next to "Two Clowns" (Trevor and Lamar). Trevor then starts to get a little worried, asking, "Clown? Where?!" which may prove he is still scared of clowns.

Although very rarely seen in-game, Trevor appears to be secretly ashamed and a bit scared of his personality. When hanging out with both Michael and Franklin simultaneously, Trevor might reveal in an ashamed tone that he doesn't want his mother to see him like this. If Trevor hangs out with Lamar enough times, he will admit to Lamar that sometimes he realizes how he's thinking (fixation on violence, horrible brutalities etc.) and gets scared of himself. If Trevor huffs gas on his trailer porch, he may sometimes mutter that he feels suicidal. This could hint that all the reckless stunts Trevor commits (such as flying a Duster inside a cargo plane while getting shot at with an RPG) might be subconscious attempts of getting killed. When drunk with Franklin, Trevor talks about being lonely and asks Franklin to hold him. When Franklin replies with jokes, Trevor starts crying: "Why are you joking!? I said I'm lonely!".

While Trevor is often controlling, loud, and willing to hurt anyone who he perceives as a threat in some way, whether physically or mentally, he is terrified by his mother. Upon meeting her in his trailer in the mission Mrs. Philips, he speaks incoherent sentences, is unable to answer questions and runs off to do the job she assigns to him without questioning it.

Trevor is also extremely talented at mathematics. According to Wade, Trevor is "really good with numbers" and can solve even the most difficult of math problems in his head in a matter of seconds without much (if any) hesitation, as seen in the Depository heist.

Appearance: Trevor is of athletic build and is 6' 1¼" (1.86 m) tall and weighs 206 lbs (93 kg). He has brown eyes and receding dark brown hair.

He also has several cuts on his face along with several tattoos including one along his neck featuring a dotted line and the words "CUT HERE," and a memorial tattoo for Michael on his shoulder, as well as a flying bird behind his ear, blazing skull on his left hand and the words "FUCK YOU" across his knuckles. Trevor has a visible scar on his abdomen from what looks to be a knife wound. Trevor also has numerous sores or boils over his lower stomach and back, likely from his drug addictions.

Trevor's default outfit is a plain and dirty white V-neck, ripped up dirty blue jeans or sweatpants and a pair of brown boots. He is seen in one screenshot with a different outfit on—a jean jacket with a half buttoned up shirt along with a white undershirt and a pair of blue jeans.

During the Prologue mission, which took place 9 years before the game's events, Trevor sports a different appearance. He isn't bald (although his hairline has started to retreat and there's a small bald spot on the back of his head), has a mullet covering his entire back of the neck, and sports a mustache. These facial features can be purchased at Barbers around Los Santos, although Trevor will still look bald with the mullet, like all his hair options. He also lacks his "CUT HERE" tattoo.

He seems fond of buying cheap clothing from Binco and the Discount Shop, while he shows total disdain for buying clothes from Ponsonby's. Some characters also mention that he is an extremely untidy and messy person when it comes to clothes and hygiene. When Michael and Trevor reunite, Michael claims Trevor "[stinks] like piss" and has blood under his fingernails. During the Paleto Score Setup, Michael calls Trevor a "proto-hipster" because his clothes are never clean and never fit. Also, Lamar Davis claims that Trevor has a "smell of ass on the distance of three meters."

Skills and Attributes: Because he is a former military aviation pilot, he is skilled in both combat and piloting aircraft like helicopters. In the mission Three's Company, Trevor was the one that flew the team to the skyscraper they needed to get their target out of. In the aftermath, as the team was pursued by law enforcement helicopters, he proved to be an able pilot under pressure.

Trevor is also the master of greed, ambition, and insanity (along with Michael and Franklin), and is seen performing many challenging (and some illegal) stunts. Some of those stunts include base jumping, jet-skiing, murdering, property destruction, arson, jumping out from moving vehicles and getting chased by the cops.

Wade also said that Trevor is "good with numbers", implying that he has good mathematical skills. This is confirmed during small talk with a bank executive during the Subtle approach to the final heist; upon being told the number of gold bricks they are stealing and the size of each one, Trevor rattles off the exact amount of gold they have before the executive can finish entering the above information into his calculator. Trevor also has an excellent perception and intuition, being the only one to figure out that the brick of coke Franklin and Lamar were buying from the Ballas at Grove Street was actually drywall.

He also proved to be a good strategist and planner. He alone pulled a successful heist on Merryweather Security Consulting, and he's been able to keep his relatively small organization peaking up in the drug and arms dealing against other bigger and more dangerous groups like the Aztecas, The Lost or the Marabunta Grande.

He also proved to be a powerful hand-to-hand combatant, usually knocking down people with a single punch in several cutscenes. He's strong enough to lift and throw people off ledges in several of his switch scenes.

Trevor's special ability is Invulnerability. While active, Trevor can take an excessive amount of damage without dying as well as a special melee attack that he can perform. By enhancing this skill, the player can increase its maximum storage capacity, which directly affects its duration. Trevor's Special skill lasts for 30 seconds when the Stat Bar for Special skill has been maxed out. While in the ability, he can survive hits from trains, Rhino tank cannon shots and being mauled by a mountain lion.