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John Nacion/Variety The first time Keith David visited Venice, he remembers finding a corner inside the cavernous grandeur of Doge’s Palace. Back in Rome, he had been starstruck by the fact that Julius Caesar had walked the same streets. But at the Doge’s Palace, he wanted to feel that prestige for himself with the ancient acoustics of the vast chamber. “The rooms were so enormous, and there were lots of people around, but I was in that little corner by myself,” he tells Variety. “It was just a few years after I had played Othello, and I just wanted to hear what it sounded like saying my lines in this room, like I was addressing the senate. You stand in that corner and whisper, and you can really be heard throughout the whole room.” Even though it was interrupted by pesky tourists who probably thought they were hearing the ghost of Othello, that experience is what comes to mind when David thinks of the Hollywood Walk of Fame; it’s not about ghosts, but the memories their names leave behind, the echoes that reverberate off the walls of the industry’s history. “It reminds me of the shoulders on whom I stand, these great actors whom I respect and learn from,” he says. “Now I get to join that. That’s pretty wonderful.” On June 10, to honor a sterling career that shows no signs of slowing down, David will, indeed, join those names with his own star on the Walk of Fame. He’s still digesting the news, but it comes as no surprise to anyone who knows his body of work. He’s a trained stage actor who arrived in Hollywood with a pair of John Carpenter horror films before becoming a stalwart presence in film and TV. In theaters, he’s starred in everything from “Dead Presidents” to “Armageddon,” “Platoon” to “Requiem for a Dream” and “There’s Something About Mary” to “Cloud Atlas.” On the small screen, he’s appeared in “Community,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Enlisted,” “ER,” “7th Heaven” and even as Keith the Southwood Carpenter on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” He is also a celebrated voice actor with almost as many credits, including “Gargoyles,” “Spawn,” “Adventure Time” and multiple Marvel animated series, playing characters such as Nick Fury and T’challa. But like so many Walk of Fame stars he will soon join, he began his career on the stage — the Delacorte Theater in New York City to be exact. In the summer of 1979, he watched Morgan Freeman and CCH Pounder in “Coriolanus” before he took that same stage and never looked back. “I got my equity card understudying Raúl Juliá in ‘Othello’ that summer,” he says. “It was my first job out of school.” He would speak that character’s words into the ornate void at Doge’s Palace not long after that debut. It was in the theater, or rather in preparation for it, that he learned a lesson he’s never forgotten. “I was taught that the rehearsal room is a sacred space, and you leave all the bullshit outside,” he says. “Once you step through that threshold, it becomes about the work. We get to breathe life onto a page. It’s a gift from God. The way God breathes life into man, we get to breathe life into a character that’s written on a page, and that’s sacred stuff.” While he loves the thrill of an audience, David didn’t confine himself to a thespian’s life. Famed horror director Carpenter cast him in his first feature film, 1982’s “The Thing,” then again in 1988’s “They Live.” “John Carpenter gave me my first movie, so he will always be a hero of mine,” David says. “But what I learned from those movies is that in any sci-fi movie, we will believe whatever you tell us to believe, as long as you stick to the premise. You can’t all of a sudden start changing the rules.” Committing to the role and to the story has never been hard for David. Even when the project isn’t tangibly in front of him, he trusts the words on the page. It’s why some people recognize his voice before they even see him. Just a few weeks ago, while checking into a hotel for his daughter’s graduation from Rutgers, someone approached him and said they heard his voice and immediately knew it was him. They didn’t offer up what they knew him from, and he didn’t ask. But it could have been any number of his vocal performances, one of which he is likely to get recognized for the rest of his career: Dr. Facilier, the voodoo doctor antagonist in Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog.” The lively, culturally significant character has become a staple in the Disney universe, giving David a character that is bigger than anything he has ever done. “Getting to play Dr. Facilier was a dream because I got to sing in a Disney movie,” he says. “I got to be a Disney villain and join the pantheon of these greats, and it opened doors for me.” He isn’t just rustling up chaos in animated form, though. His sturdy, bewitching voice has also become a rare commodity in the world of documentaries. He has won multiple Emmys for narration, including one for his work on Ken Burns’ “Jackie Robinson.” David is a lifelong history lover and jumps at the chance to learn while he works. He says Burns told him that narrating is like the voice of God giving you data — and he takes that seriously. “I’m not trying to infuse the data with Keith’s point of view, but that does not mean it’s devoid of compassion either,” he says. “I’m just trying to present it with an objectivity that opens up your imagination to want to know more about it, and to be able to discern the truth from a lie.” On screen, he is particularly proud of his five-season run as Bishop James in OWN Network’s “Greenleaf,” which fulfilled his younger self’s dream of being a pastor. He hasn’t given up on that dream, just revised it for his circumstances. “My ministry is not in the pulpit,” he says. “My ministry happens to be in the theater, which is another sacred space.” He still has a few dream roles to check off, chief among them Frederick Douglass and Paul Robeson, towering figures he has already played in other forms. But he wants to see their stories on the big screen. One bucket-list role he recently scratched off was his desire to play a detective, and now he’s playing two simultaneously on FX’s “The Lowdown” with Ethan Hawke and NBC’s upcoming comedy “Sunset P.I.,” where he plays the owner of the sleuthing agency. He grins when he notes that last fact. He’s not just any detective now. He is the detective. Still being surprised by the work coming his way is why he’s still here. With more than 400 credits to his name, David is always open to more — just ask. “I’m 47 years into this, and I still get to do it,” he says. “Ain’t nobody making me do it. Nobody is twisting my arm. Ask me, I might say yes!”
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