Sami Antero Järvi (born 28 March 1970), better known by his artist name Sam Lake ('Järvi' is Finnish for lake), is a Finnish writer and actor. He is the creative director at Remedy Entertainment, known for his writing (as well as his likeness) on the popular Max Payne video game series and Alan Wake.
Lake attended Helsinki University of Technology studying English literature around 1995. He was introduced to video games through a long-time friend Petri Järvilehto, one of the early members of Remedy Entertainment. Remedy was developing their first game Death Rally and needed text for the game, and Järvilehto asked Lake, one of the few people Remedy knew in writing, to help. Lake accepted the offer, and has since remained with Remedy.
Lake played several roles in the development of Max Payne. He wrote the game's story and script and helped design levels. Because of the game's budget, Remedy could not hire actors. As a result, Lake, along with other Remedy programmers, artists and staff played the roles. Lake became the face model for the title character and he even got his mother to portray Nicole Horne, the game's main antagonist.