Keith David in Princess and Frog
Crash Actor Will Voice Role of Villain in Disney Animated Movie
Character actor Keith David (Crash, Delta Farce) has signed on as the villain in Disney's The Princess and the Frog.
(Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com)
Emmy Award-winning actor Keith David will voice the role of Dr. Facilier, the smooth-talking voodoo villain of the Walt Disney Company's upcoming animated musical The Princess and the Frog.
David is best known on the silver screen for roles in the recent live-action flicks Delta Farce and Crash. He also has a long history of voice-over work, most notably in Gargoyles and voicing the title character in the animated television series Spawn and the direct-to-video feature Spawn 3: The Ultimate Battle.
He was also nominated for two Emmy Awards: once in 1994 for voicing Goliath in Gargoyles, another for playing Earl Woods in 1998's The Tiger Woods Story, and a third for his work in Ken Burn's 2001 documentary Jazz. He eventually won an Emmy for his Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 2004's Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.
He will star opposite Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls) who is voicing the role of Tiana, a young girl living in the French Quarter in 1920's New Orleans. Walt Disney Animation Studios is producing the flick, and they're aiming for a Christmas 2009 release.
This movie is significant for being Disney's first foray into traditional cel animation, which they haven't worked with since 2004's Home on the Range. Acclaimed Disney veterans Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) are both writing the script and directing the movie from what they call "an original idea." Composer Randy Newman (Toy Story, Cars) is writing the score for the flick.
Keith David's character was originally called Dr. Duvalier, a riff on the infamous Haitian father-and-son dictators. However, the new character name came in a flurry of changes for the film, after the original movie announcement spawned several protests from black group. The movie's title was originally The Frog Princess, which many speculated would be Disney's adaptation of the ancient Russian folktale.
Fun Fact 1: Actor Charlie Sheen once credited Keith David with saving his life when they working together on Oliver Stone's 1986 movie Platoon. According to Sheen, they were shooting dailies when the Huey gunship they were in banked too hard in mid-flight. Sheen says he would have fallen out of the helicopter if David hadn't grabbed his shirt and hauled him back in.
Fun Fact 2: I preferred the character's original name, Dr. Duvalier. Besides, I don't understand why people would get offended by that; the Haitian dictators were notorious sleazes anyway.
