Earlier in the week, game developer Bungie revealed that Keith David would be portraying the role of Destiny 2’s Commander Zavala beginning with 2024’s The Final Shape expansion. The actor is taking over the role from Lance Reddick, who passed away earlier in the year, but his relationship with Bungie goes all the way back to 2004’s Halo 2, where he played (and continues to play) that game’s deuteragonist the Arbiter. After the announcement, David posted a video on Twitter, where he talked about his hopes to do Zavala justice. He spoke about his desire to follow on from Reddick’s time with the character, saying he was drawn to Zavala because of “his integrity…and his sense of family. I thought Lance captured that wonderfully, And it is my intention to continue that work and continue to bring that kind of integrity to the role.”
Much like Clancy Brown, David is one of those actors whose voice carries a lot of weight, and whose starting point for people depends on when they grew up. Older audiences may know him for The Thing or They Live, 90s kids grew up on his voice from Gargoyles or Spawn, and more recent generations likely know of him through voicing the President over on Rick & Morty or Adventure Time’s Flame King. He’s an actor who never seems to be out of work and is always busy. If you check his filmography on Wikipedia, he’s had over ten projects in recent years spread across both animation and live-action, and it seems like he’ll continue being busy for the next few years. He’s got several upcoming works like the horror movies Shelby Oaks and All Fun and Games listed as future projects, and he’s set to voice Hordak in next year’s Masters of the Universe: Revolution.
So for this weekend’s Open Channel, it’s as good a reason as any to talk about how great Keith David is, and some of your favorite roles he’s done. Let us know down in the comments below.
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