Keith David

Biography

Keith David (born June 4, 1956, in New York City) is an American actor whose deep voice and distinctive screen presence have made him recognizable across film, television, stage and video games. By his own count in the reference material, he has played more than four hundred roles. He belongs to the generation of performers who reached film in the 1980s and have kept working for decades.

He was born in Harlem and raised in Corona, Queens. His interest in acting began when he played the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz. He trained at the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan and then at the Juilliard School's Drama Division, graduating in 1979. In 1980 and 1981 he toured the country with John Houseman's The Acting Company in productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Waiting for Godot.

His film breakthrough came with The Thing (1982), John Carpenter's horror classic, where he played Childs opposite Kurt Russell. Over the following years he moved between very different projects: Platoon (1986) for Oliver Stone, They Live (1988) with Carpenter again, Clockers (1995) for Spike Lee and Armageddon (1998). His role as Big Tim in Requiem for a Dream (2000) remains one of the most cited of his independent work. In science fiction, Pitch Black (2000) and The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) brought him wider attention among genre fans.

He is also a busy voice actor. He won an Emmy for narrating Ken Burns documentaries, including The War and Unforgivable Blackness. He voiced Goliath in Gargoyles, Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog and the Arbiter in the Halo games, and he played Captain Anderson in the Mass Effect series. On television he appeared as Elroy Patashnik in the sixth season of Community and starred in the drama Greenleaf.

In recent years he has continued with films such as Nope (2022) and American Fiction (2023). In June 2026 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His legacy spans cult cinema, independent drama and animation, anchored by a voice that remains his most recognizable asset.

Key films

• The Thing (1982): his breakthrough film role as Childs opposite Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's horror classic.
• Platoon (1986): a role in Oliver Stone's Vietnam War drama.
• Requiem for a Dream (2000): the part of Big Tim in a widely discussed independent drama.
• Crash (2004): a member of the ensemble cast of a drama about race in Los Angeles.
• Nope (2022): one of his most recent appearances in genre cinema.