Keith David's voice precedes him. Deep and resonant, with mellifluous notes that hark back to his boys' choir days, it has spent decades inhabiting warriors, gods, rogues, fathers and a welter of cartoon oddballs. Before David appears in a Zoom window from his Los Angeles home office, his voice reverberates through my tinny laptop speakers like a foghorn. 'Can you see me now?' he booms once our connection is established after fits and starts. 'OK. Outside of technology, you know I'm … OK.'
A Career Spanning Five Decades
At 70, David remains as in demand as ever. He has amassed more than 400 screen credits since the late 1970s, from The Thing to Platoon to There's Something About Mary to Nope. He recently wrapped a dark buddy comedy called My Friend Jim, starring opposite Rob Lowe. 'I went to see it last night,' says David, who generally avoids watching his on-screen performances once he's given them. 'I'll go to a cast and crew screening, and that's usually the first and last time I'll see something.'
David has made a life's work of being more recognizable than famous, a character actor nonpareil. His résumé stretches from action movies to animation, Shakespeare to sitcoms; from Ken Burns documentaries to Call of Duty video games. He pops up in live-action series like the Ethan Hawke-led noir The Lowdown and Will Ferrell golf comedy The Hawk while his velvet baritone echoes everywhere from the Rick and Morty universe to a straight-to-streaming documentary on the Gettysburg Address.
New Lead Role in President Curtis
David caught up with the Guardian just before bolting off to San Diego Comic-Con to promote President Curtis, the Rick and Morty spinoff that marks the first standalone lead role of his remarkable career. 'You never know in this business. It's a very funny business. But you gotta be in it. One thing I always say is: don't quit before the blessing. You never know what it's gonna take, or what's in front of you.'
David's path to this milestone wasn't always smooth. After his first film role in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), which was overshadowed by ET and Poltergeist, he recalls, 'it didn't get the popular vote. Critics didn't like it. I thought, well, I got an honorable mention [in the reviews]. Maybe I'm not going to have a life in the movies.' Four years passed before Hollywood called on him again. In between auditions, acting company gigs and a side hustle as a speech teacher, he worked as a shiatsu masseur, charging fellow ensemble members $30 for a session.
Lessons from Mister Rogers and Platoon
After The Thing, David booked a nine-episode arc on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as Keith, the neighborhood carpenter. The experience was a masterclass in captivating an audience. 'One of the ladies in the cast, I believe, now you would say her son had autism. He was a wonderful kid, but, you know, he could be all over the place. On set, they had a living room space where the TV was. And when Mr Rogers came on, Brian would sit in front of that television, riveted. He would shush you if you came into the room and made noise. It was really something to see the effect he had on children, on people. It was moving. It was a lesson.'
Oliver Stone's Platoon broke David's four-year slump and set him on a path of near-constant work. During a helicopter scene, Charlie Sheen nearly slid out of the open door. David grabbed him instinctively. 'How close did it actually come? I don't know. We'll never know. But, praise God, it didn't happen, and we live to tell the tale.'
Navigating Hollywood as a Black Actor
As a young Black actor navigating Hollywood in the 80s and 90s, David understood how easily he could be pigeonholed. His solution wasn't to avoid those roles, but to find the humanity within them. 'I've played hustlers and pimps and all that. My criteria is, I need to know why he made those choices so the audience understands the man. I want you to understand Black men as full-scope human beings. I try to go for that as much as possible.'
David's show business role models were people like Orson Welles, James Earl Jones and Ossie Davis – actors whose voices were instruments unto themselves. 'What they were able to do in the realm of voiceover was just fascinating to me. I wanted to be able to do that too, just by the voice, take you on a journey.'
Staying Active at 70
David is in no mood to slow down, despite recent evidence to the contrary. At his Hollywood Walk of Fame induction in June – on his birthday – he was photographed with his right arm in a sling, the result of a workout gone sideways. 'I was in the gym fighting with a Bosu ball,' he says of the muscle injury. 'But I'm on the mend. I'm starting some light exercises right now. I keep in shape for whatever role happens to come along.' If family history is a guide, he reckons he has a fair few productive years still ahead. 'My grandmothers lived into their 80s and 90s. My father is about to be 90. I feel like I'm in good company.'
President Curtis airs on Adult Swim on Sundays and will be available on HBO Max.
