Keith David

Keith David Williams was born on June 4, 1956, in Harlem and raised in Corona, Queens, New York City. His mother, Dolores, née Dickenson, worked as a manager at New York Telephone, while his father, Lester Williams, served as a director of payroll operations. An early interest in performance led him to Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts, after which he enrolled in the Juilliard School's Drama Division, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1979 as a member of Group 8.

David launched his professional stage career in 1980–81, touring nationally with John Houseman's The Acting Company in productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. His Broadway career spanned two decades, from 1986 to 2006, and included productions of Seven Guitars, Hot Feet, Hedda Gabler, Jelly's Last Jam, and Macbeth. His performance in Jelly's Last Jam earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 1992.

His screen career began in earnest when he starred as Childs opposite Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's The Thing in 1982. Throughout the 1980s he appeared in Platoon and They Live, and during the 1990s took on roles in Dead Presidents, Armageddon, and There's Something About Mary. His film work continued into the following decades with Requiem for a Dream, Pitch Black, Barbershop, Crash, The Chronicles of Riddick, Cloud Atlas, The Nice Guys, Nope, and American Fiction. On television, he portrayed Elroy Patashnik in the sixth season of the NBC series Community and starred as Bishop James Greenleaf in the Oprah Winfrey Network drama Greenleaf from 2016 to 2020. In the 1980s, he also appeared on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, portraying Keith the Southwood Carpenter in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe segments.

David has built an extensive parallel career as a voice actor, recognized in part for his distinctive bass voice. He voiced Goliath in the animated series Gargoyles from 1994 to 1997 and Al Simmons in Todd McFarlane's Spawn from 1997 to 1999. Additional television voice roles include the Flame King in Adventure Time, King Andrias in Amphibia, President Andre Curtis in Rick and Morty, and Husk in Hazbin Hotel. In feature animation, he voiced Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog and the Cat in Coraline, both released in 2009. His video game credits include the Arbiter Thel 'Vadamee across multiple entries in the Halo franchise from 2004 to 2015, Julius Little and himself in the Saints Row series, Captain Anderson in the Mass Effect series, and Commander Zavala in Destiny 2: The Final Shape, a role he assumed following the death of Lance Reddick in March 2023.

David has narrated numerous documentary projects for filmmaker Ken Burns, among them Jazz, The War, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Leonardo da Vinci. His narration work earned him the Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance. In October 2025, he was part of the cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas live concert, voicing Oogie Boogie following the death of the role's original voice actor, Ken Page, in September 2024. In July 2025, David was selected to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2026. A native of New York, New York, he has accumulated more than 400 credited roles across film, stage, television, and interactive media.