David Kaye

David Kaye is a Canadian voice actor. He is best known for animation roles such as Megatron in five of the Transformers series (Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron), Optimus Prime in Transformers: Animated, Professor X in X-Men: Evolution, Cronus in Class of the Titans, Khyber in Ben 10: Omniverse, several characters in Avengers Assemble, and Duckworth in the reboot of DuckTales. He is also known for anime roles including Sesshōmaru in Inuyasha and Treize Khushrenada in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, and video game roles such as Clank in the Ratchet & Clank series, Nathan Hale in the Resistance series, and Ford Cruller in the Psychonauts series. He is also the announcer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO and voiced the Celestial Arishem in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals. He did voice work for various other studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for many years while occasionally doing voice work in Los Angeles, California, US, before fully relocating there in 2007.

Early life During the 1980s, Kaye moved to Vancouver to work in radio. He also did theatre, playing George in a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Elwood P. Dowd in a production of Harvey.

Career

Kaye's voice acting career began in 1989 with General Hawk in the DiC animated series G.I. Joe. Working as an on-air talent for radio station CKLG (LG73), he quickly became less interested as both on-camera and voice roles started taking up more of his time. On-camera opportunities came in the form of guest roles on TV series and movies such as The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, and Happy Gilmore. During this time, he was cast in several animation shows and video games, including a role as Megatron in Beast Wars. This began a decades-long relationship with the Transformers franchise. In 2007, Kaye become the first and (as of 2021) only actor in the franchise to play both Megatron and Optimus Prime in regular roles, voicing the latter for Cartoon Network's Transformers: Animated. He also lent his voice to the later series Transformers: Prime and Transformers: Robots in Disguise.

In anime, Kaye has been the voice behind Sesshomaru in the English dubbed Inuyasha series, Treize Khushrenada in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Recoome in Dragon Ball Z (1996–98) and as Soun Tendo in Ranma ½. His involvement in anime has led to several appearances at conventions. Kaye later moved to Los Angeles and has since worked on Ben 10: Omniverse as the villain Khyber, on Regular Show as Reginald, and on Xiaolin Chronicles as Clay Bailey, F-Bot, and Chase Young. He has voiced several characters on the Avengers Assemble animated series and Max Tennyson in the reboot of Ben 10. He shared the role of the Stretch Monster with Miguel Ferrer in Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters, and also succeeded Ferrer as Vandal Savage in Young Justice: Outsiders following his death.

Kaye also narrates film trailers and network promos for ABC, Fox, The CW, National Geographic, TLC, FX, and others.

Personal life Kaye and his wife, Maria Hope, have a daughter named Tianna.

Filmography Animation

Anime

Television YearTitleRoleNotes2014–presentLast Week Tonight with John OliverAnnouncerVoice Film

Video games