Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956 in New York City, New York), known professionally as Keith David, is an American actor known for his deep, smooth voice.
Frequently typecast as a Scary Black Man. Fortunately, he found his renaissance as a Voice Actor, from which he garnered a veritable army of devoted fans. Keith is best known in the voice acting sphere for his roles as Goliath in Gargoyles, the titular Spawn, Admiral Anderson in the Mass Effect trilogy, the Arbiter in the Halo franchise, and Sergeant Foley in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ("RAMIREZ! Take out that helicopter with a frisbee!"). In live-action, Mr. David is best known for his roles as Childs in The Thing (1982), Frank Armitage in They Live!, and the affable soldier known as King in Platoon.
He is not David Keith. What he is, is an awesome singer
.
Also, don't mess with his fries.
Film Roles
- 1982 The Thing (1982) - Childs
- 1986 Platoon - King
- 1988 They Live! - Frank Armitage
- 1988 Off Limits - Specialist Five Maurice
- 1989 Road House (1989) - Ernie Bass
- 1990 Men at Work (1990) - Louis Dekker
- 1990 Marked for Death - Max Keller
- 1993 The Last Outlaw - Lovecraft
- 1994 The Puppet Masters - Alex Holland
- 1995 The Quick and the Dead - Lt. Cantrell
- 1996 Larger than Life - Conductor
- 1997 Volcano - Lieutenant Ed Fox
- 1998 There's Something About Mary - Mary's Stepfather
- 1998 Armageddon (1998) - General Kimsey (the Air Force general who suggests blasting the asteroid with 50 nukes).
- 2000 Requiem for a Dream - Big Tim
- 2000-2004 The Chronicles of Riddick - Abu 'Imam' al-Walid
- 2003-2004 Agent Cody Banks and Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London - CIA Director
- 2007 The Last Sentinel - Colonel Norton
- 2008 The Fifth Commandment - Jazzman
- 2008 Justice League: The New Frontier - The Centre (voice)
- 2009 Gamer - Agent Keith, Slayers announcer
- 2009 The Princess and the Frog - Dr. Facilier, providing his singing voice as well.
- 2009 All About Steve - Corbitt
- 2009 Coraline - The Cat (voice, in the tie-in video games as well)
- 2012 Smiley - Diamond
- 2012 Cloud Atlas as Kupaka / Joe Napier / An-kor Apis / Prescient
- 2013 Assault on Wall Street - Freddy
- 2016 The Nice Guys - Older Guy
- 2018 Tales from the Hood 2 - Portifoy Simms
- 2019 The Wedding Year - Preston
- 2022 DC League of Super-Pets - Dog-El (voice)
- 2022 Nope - Otis Haywood, Sr.
- 2022 Entergalactic - Mr. Rager (voice)
- 2023 American Fiction - Willy the Wonker
Television Roles
- 1983-1985 Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Keith the Southwood Carpenter
- 1995 Fantastic Four: The Animated Series - Black Panther (voice)
- 1996-1997 Gargoyles - Goliath, Officer Morgan, and Thailog
- 1997 Princess Mononoke - Okkoto (voice)
- 1997-1999 Todd McFarlane's Spawn - Spawn (voice)
- 1997-1998 Hercules - Apollo, the Sun God (voice)
- 2001 The Legend of Tarzan - Tublat (voice)
- 2001-2002 The Job - Lieutenant Williams
- 2001 House of Mouse - Mufasa (sitting in for James Earl Jones)
- 2003 Justice League - Despero (voice)
- 2004 The Big House - Clarence Cleveland
- 2004 Teen Titans - Atlas (voice)
- 2006-2007 7th Heaven - Stanley Sunday
- 2006-2007 ER - Pastor Watkins
- 2008 The Spectacular Spider-Man - Tombstone (only in the first episode, replaced by Kevin Michael Richardson)
- 2008 Psych - Bill Guster
- 2009 NUMB3RS - Jeremiah Miller
- 2011 The Cape - Max Malini
- 2012-2015 Community - Elroy Patashnik in Season 6 (also a guest narrator for the episode "Pillows and Blankets").
- 2012-2017 Adventure Time - Flame King (voice), Balthus (voice)
- 2013 Once Upon a Time in Wonderland - The Cheshire Cat
- 2013 Young Justice - Mongol (voice)
- 2013 The Bible (2013) - Narrator (voice)
- 2015 Mr. Robot - Qwerty (voice, uncredited)
- 2015-2017 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) - Sal Commander/G'Throkka (voice)
- 2015-2022 Rick and Morty - Reverse Giraffe (voice), the President (voice)
- 2016 Kulipari: An Army of Frogs - Lord Marmoo (voice)
- 2017 We Bare Bears - Mr. Charles (voice)
- 2017 Bojack Horseman - Lion Musician (voice)
- 2017 Ben 10 (2016) - Yawk (voice)
- 2017-2018 Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters - Malcolm Kane/Number One (voice)
- 2017-2020 The Flash (2014) - Solovar (voice)
- 2017-2021 Final Space - Bolo (voice)
- 2018-2019 Star vs. the Forces of Evil - Glossaryck (replacing Jeffrey Tambor, season three finale onwards)
- 2018 SpongeBob SquarePants - Gary's Collar (voice)
- 2020 NCIS: New Orleans - Detective Gene Holloway
- 2020-2022 Amphibia - King Andrias (voice)
- 2021 DuckTales (2017) - Manny (voice)
- 2021-2022 Stargirl (2020) - Mr. Bones
- 2023 Leverage: Redemption - Billy Spencer
- 2023 Krapopolis - Asskill (voice)
- 2023 Pluto - Dr. Tenma (voice; English dub)
- 2024 Hazbin Hotel - Husk (voice)
Videogame Roles
- 1997 Fallout - Decker
- 1999 Planescape: Torment - Vhailor
- 2003 Lords of EverQuest as Lord Vekk
- 2004-2015 Halo - Arbiter Thel 'Vadam
- 2006-2013 Saints Row - Julius Little, Keith David
- 2007 Transformers: The Game - Barricade
- 2007-2012 Mass Effect - Captain/Councilor/Admiral David Anderson
- 2008-2011 Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy - Chaos
- 2009 Modern Warfare 2 - Sergeant Foley
- 2010 Civilization V - One quote in the trailer
- 2010 Megamind and Megamind: Mega Team Unite - Psycho Delic
- 2013 Marvel Heroes - Nick Fury
- 2019 Mortal Kombat 11 - Spawn
- 2024 Destiny 2 - Commander Zavala (replacing the late Lance Reddick)
Other Work:
As might be imagined, someone with his unique voice is often in demand as something other than an actor. Specifically, he makes an excellent narrator for such things as:
- City Confidential, the narration of which he took over after Paul Winfield's death.
- Comic Book Superheroes: Unmasked (a documentary for the History Channel)
- Empires: Egypt's Golden Empire
- Several Ken Burns films including Jazz, The War, the 10th Inning of Baseball (documentary series), and Muhammad Ali
- New York: A Documentary Film (the first three episodes; these were later recycled for The American Experience)
- U.S. Armed Forces commercials.
- Lions of Darkness, a Nature Documentary for National Geographic.
- Jewels of the Caribbean Sea, also for National Geographic.
- WWE documentaries and DVDs, for which David has occasionally narrated.
- Mobil 1 commercials.
- Xbox commercials in 2002-03 ("For *something relevant to the commercial*, there's no power greater than X.")
- Single White Female TV commercial
- He has filled in for Ving Rhames doing the voiceovers for Arby's commercials on occasion.
