David Hayter

In late April 2019, non-Japanese fans of the Cinderella Girls sub-series of Bandai Namco Entertainment's Idolmaster franchise started pairing the then-unvoiced Brazilian character Natalia with Solid Snake. On 22 April 2019, Canadian YouTuber Mahado, a fan of the series, released a video in which Hayter reprised his role as Solid Snake to urge players to vote for Natalia in the 2019 Cinderella Girls general election, with audio by PepsiJohnny and Japanese subtitles by ThePascalPama. The campaign involved both players in and outside Japan, and at the end of September 2019, Natalia placed 9th in the overall preliminary rankings (3rd in Passion idol rankings) in the election and finally got a voice actress in the form of Teru Ikata.

After Kojima's departure from Konami following the release of The Phantom Pain, Hayter would reprise the role of Snake in a Metal Gear Solid-themed advertisement for the 2016 Ford Focus SE aired in 2016. In 2018, Hayter provided Snake's voice in two video games: Super Bomberman R (which added two playable characters based on both, Solid Snake and Naked Snake, in an update) and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Following the announcement of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in the 2013 Game Developers Conference, Hayter announced that he was not asked to reprise the role of Snake for this entry. This was later confirmed when Konami announced that Kiefer Sutherland would be the new voice of Snake (playing both, Naked Snake, and a new version of the character named Venom Snake) during E3 the same year. Hayter has since revealed in an interview that he had to re-audition for the role in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004), suggesting that the series' creator Hideo Kojima was already considering recasting the part much earlier, with Kurt Russell (Snake Plissken in Escape from New York and Escape from L.A.) having been allegedly offered the role during the development of Metal Gear Solid 3.

On July 8, 2013, Hayter was hired by Lakeshore Entertainment to write the film The Sword, based on the Image Comics series.

On August 7, 2013, it was announced Hayter was developing a television show on Fox tentatively titled World War III, about a fiction global conflict that chronicles "a perfect storm of world events places us in the center of a global battle which may bring the world as we know it to an end." Hayter will be writing the series' story bible and pilot episode, as well as producing and serving as showrunner.

On September 7, 2012, it was announced that Hayter would pen the screen adaptation Caught Stealing, and would star Patrick Wilson and Alec Baldwin.

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

Hayter is one of the few Metal Gear actors to have played and completed the games he's voiced in. According to an interview with Paul Eiding, Hayter gave up half of his own paycheck in order to bring back the cast of the original Metal Gear Solid for the 2004 remake Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes.

In 2000, he wrote the screenplay for the movie version of X-Men, for which he was awarded the 2000 Saturn Award for Best Writing, 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.

Hayter began providing the English voice of Metal Gear series protagonist Solid Snake in the 1998 video game Metal Gear Solid, which also served as the series's transition from 2D to 3D. Hayter would go on to play Solid Snake and his predecessor Naked Snake throughout all the succeeding installments (including spinoffs, re-releases and adaptations) up until Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker in 2010. Hayter also has an extended live-action cameo as himself in one of the fictional TV programs prior to the start of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008); where he wears the "Solid Eye", the technologically advanced eye patch that Snake wears throughout the game. Outside the Metal Gear series, Hayter also voiced Snake in Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008).

Hayter did some live acting in the early 1990s, but became interested in voice acting after acting 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. He also starred in the 1994, straight-to-video movie, Guyver: Dark Hero, as the protagonist, Sean Barker (a role he took over from the previous actor, Jack Armstrong); Hayter has since gone-on to use the character's name as an alias in various work credits.

Hayter was born in Santa Monica, 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, 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, Ontario, Canada where he stayed until the age of 20, when he moved to Hollywood.

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 [a film version of] 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." 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. The script did not keep the contemporary atmosphere that Hayter created, but instead returned to the original Cold War setting of the Watchmen comic. 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.

David Bryan Hayter (born February 6, 1969) is an American-Canadian actor, voice actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is well known as the English voice actor for Solid Snake and Naked Snake throughout many titles in the Metal Gear video game series. His works as a screenwriter include X-Men, X2 and Watchmen; he was awarded the Saturn Award for Best Writing in 2000 for his work on X-Men.