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David Hayter

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David Hayter
Hayter at Video Games Live in Los Angeles, September 21, 2006
Born
David Bryan Hayter

(1969-02-06) 6 February 1969 (age 55)
Santa Monica, California, United States
Other namesSean Barker
Occupation(s)Voice actor, Screenwriter, Actor, Director, Producer

David Hayter (born February 6, 1969) is a Canadian-American voice and screen actor and screenwriter. He is best known for providing the English voices of Solid Snake and Big Boss (Naked Snake) in the Metal Gear video game series, and for writing the screenplay for X-Men and co-writing the screenplay for The Scorpion King and X2. He also wrote the screenplay for Watchmen from the comic book series of the same name, which received an enthusiastic reception from the director and original illustrator. Earlier in his acting career, he played the lead role in the live-action Guyver: Dark Hero.

Early life

Hayter was born in California to Canadian parents. He started acting at the age of 9. Hayter spent most of his childhood living around the world and at the age of 15, Hayter moved to Kobe in Japan where he graduated from the Canadian Academy, an international school, in 1987. After high school, he attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for two years until transferring to Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada where he stayed until the age of 20 when he moved to Hollywood.[1] He did some live acting in the early 1990s, but became interested in voice acting after making a cameo appearance in an episode of the sitcom Major Dad, and later landed the role of Captain America in the popular 1994 Spider-Man animated series. He also provided the voice of Arsène Lupin III in the English version of the anime film The Castle of Cagliostro and the voice of Tamahome in the English version of the anime series Fushigi Yūgi.

Metal Gear Solid

In 1998, Hayter voiced protagonist Solid Snake in the highly successful video game Metal Gear Solid. He provided Snake's voice in later Metal Gear games such as Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (which was a remake of Metal Gear Solid), and provided the voice for a closely related character, Naked Snake, a young Big Boss, in the prequels Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. Most recently he has voiced Solid Snake (renamed Old Snake) in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Naked Snake in the PSP game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Also, he had a brief acting role in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots during one of the beginning commercial propaganda scenes, starring as himself in the alternate reality of the Metal Gear world. In the scene, he wears the "Solid Eye", the technologically advanced eye patch that Old Snake wears throughout the game. It is confirmed that he will not be voicing Snake in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.[2]

Hayter also provided the voice of Solid Snake for the character's guest appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a Wii fighting game unrelated to the Metal Gear series. Hayter is one of the few Metal Gear Solid actors to date to have played and beaten the Metal Gear games he's voiced in,[3] while co-star Christopher Randolph has only played Metal Gear Solid.

According to an interview with Paul Eiding, Hayter gave up half of his own paycheck in order to bring back the cast of Metal Gear Solid for the remake, The Twin Snakes. This is the reason why the voice acting in The Twin Snakes was almost completely redone with the same voice actors, one of the few differences being the actor for Gray Fox, Greg Eagles, who was replaced by Rob Paulsen.[4]

An interview with David Hayter by Game Informer in 2001, showed that Hayter wished for the then-unconfirmed Metal Gear Solid movie to be animated or made in CGI, possibly so he could provide the voice of Solid Snake. He also wished to write the screenplay for the film, going so far as writing an unused treatment.[5]

His work with Metal Gear Solid has also led Hayter to other video game voices, such as characters in Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, by Silicon Knights, who also developed Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes for the Nintendo GameCube. He also cited the Metal Gear series as an influence on his screenwriting, stating that "Kojima and I have different styles," "but I've certainly learned things from him, especially about ambiguity and telling a story without giving all the answers."[6]

After the announcement of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Hayter confirmed he will not reprise his role as Big Boss aka Naked Snake. His official website was recently updated with a short video of him running away from a computer-generated plane crashing, which may allude to the recent news.

Film

Hayter's first movie appearance was in Guyver: Dark Hero. In 2000 he wrote the screenplay for the movie version of X-Men, and then went on to co-write the screenplay for its sequel X2 with writing team Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris. Shortly after his work on X-Men, Hayter was hired to write and direct a project based on the heroine Black Widow. However, due to the limited success of similar themed films featuring female vigilante protagonists at the time, Marvel withdrew their offer to Hayter stating, "We don’t think it’s time to do this movie". Hayter's daughter Natasha, born whilst he was writing the Black Widow script, is named after the titular character.[7]

Hayter also wrote an adaptation of the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. Noted for being a harsh critic of translations of his works to film, Moore said of the script "David Hayter's screenplay was as close as I could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen. That said, I shan't be going to see it. My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book. It's been made in a certain way, and designed to be read a certain way."[8] Hayter and writer Alex Tse shared credit on the finished screenplay. Tse drew "the best elements" from two of the project's previous drafts written by screenwriter Hayter.[9] The script did not keep the contemporary atmosphere that Hayter created, but instead returned to the original Cold War setting of the Watchmen comic.[10] Warner Bros. was amenable to the 1980s setting, and the director also added a title montage sequence to introduce the audience to the events of alternate history United States in that time period.[11]

On April 12, 2011, it was announced that Hayter has been tapped to write the feature film screenplay for the science fiction/fantasy novel Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey.[12] On September 7, 2012, it was announced that Hayter would pen the screen adaptation Caught Stealing, and would star Patrick Wilson and Alec Baldwin.[13]

On September 13, 2012, Hayter began filming on his directorial debut, Wolves.[14]

Filmography

Live Action roles

  • Major Dad (1993) (TV): Misha Sarotsky (guest appearance) "From Russia with Like" (Season 4 episode 17, 1993)
  • Long Shadows (1994) (TV)
  • Guyver 2: Dark Hero (1994): Sean Barker/Guyver
  • Drive (1997): Cop #1
  • Burn (1998)
  • Wild on the Set (2000) TV Series
  • X-Men (2000): Museum Cop
  • The Devil's Mile (2013) Toby McTeague

Voice Acting roles

Screenwriting

Directing

  • Wolves (2013)

References

  1. ^ "TWiG – David Hayter Special Interview"
  2. ^ http://kotaku.com/beloved-solid-snake-voice-actor-says-he-wasn-t-asked-to-461256492
  3. ^ "UK PSP". Retrieved 15 December 2006.
  4. ^ http://mgstus.org/downloads/audio/interview_peiding/peiding_p1.mp3
  5. ^ "Screenrant.com". Retrieved 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  6. ^ Fitch, Andrew (May 7, 2008). "Anime Expo: David Hayter Critical of Some MGS Moments". 1UP.com. Retrieved March 2, 2012.
  7. ^ http://www.latinoreview.com/news/david-hayter-talks-what-happened-to-marvel-s-black-widow-9307. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ^ Jensen, Jeff (2005-10-21). "Watchmen: An Oral History". Entertainment Weekly.
  9. ^ Gregory Ellwood (2006-07-18). "World awaits Watchmen". Variety. Retrieved 2006-09-23.
  10. ^ "Exclusive: Zack Snyder talks Watchmen". Empire. 2006-10-05. Retrieved 2006-10-05.
  11. ^ Patrick Lee (2006-11-09). "Snyder: Watchmen Remains True". Sci Fi Wire. Archived from the original on 2007-09-01. Retrieved 2006-11-09.
  12. ^ "Comingsoon.net".
  13. ^ "The Hollywood Reporter". Retrieved 09 September 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  14. ^ "Dark Horizons".
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