Metal Gear Solid icon David Hayter on a lifetime of performing: ‘I wanted to be Harrison Ford’
David Hayter is one of the most popular actors in the video game industry, known by many as the voice of various Snake iterations from Metal Gear Solid. But before he landed the iconic role, he had already taken steps in crafting his art from a young age in the world of voice acting.
“I always wanted to be an action movie star. I wanted to be Harrison Ford when I was young; it’s why I eventually moved to Hollywood,” Hayter tells me. “I started acting when I was nine, doing shows in school and theatre. But my first video game voiceover came when I was in high school, when I was living in Japan.”
“A company came to our school that needed English-speaking actors to record lines for arcade video games. It was a blast. I’d already been training my voice to do a lot of accents, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is a great job’. I never wanted to give up on being in front of a camera, but as soon as I realised how fun voiceover work is, that’s an avenue I wanted to pursue.”
Aside from making his name doing voiceover work, David Hayter is also a craftsman behind the camera, writing the screenplay for the first two X-Men movies, as well as Watchmen (2009), and more recently, Warrior Nun on Netflix. David tells me what motivated him to get creative behind the camera.
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“It was poverty that initially drove me. I was a broke actor. A friend and I made a movie that we produced and starred in called Burn. We managed to raise about $250k for the project, and I found out that I was quite a good producer and I enjoyed the creative process.”
“This led me to work as the screenwriter for the first X-Men movie. I was one of the few crew members who read comic books, and I knew X-Men stories better than I knew my family. I ended up doing rewrites on the script, and through a series of events, I got sole credit on the movie. Then I became a big screenwriter, and suddenly, I wasn't poor anymore.”
“I’ll always love acting, voiceover work is the best job in the world,” he continues. “But I love writing and producing. Working behind the camera uses different parts of your brain and requires a different skill set. It also pays a lot more, and having that security for your family is a valuable thing.”
Many fans’ introduction to David Hayter would have been with Metal Gear Solid, released on the PlayStation in 1998 as the voice of the legendary Solid Snake. Led by Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear Solid was a game that defined the stealth genre with its deep gameplay mechanics and its compelling cinematic storytelling.
“One of the producers showed me the cutscene of when Snake shoots down a Hind D helicopter with a Stinger missile launcher, and it was then that I realised this was going to be a game changer,” David explains. “I knew this was something that had never been made before. I knew Metal Gear Solid was going to be big, but I had no idea the series would still be going strong 27 years later.
“You always hope that a project is going to be a big hit, but you never know, and you certainly can’t anticipate how much of a phenomenon Metal Gear Solid has become. It’s so rare for that to happen. I thought the first X-Men movie was going to be a disaster, and that nobody was going to get it, including the studio. Yet, that was lightning in a bottle.”
Being nearly three decades old, there have been various iterations of the Snake/Boss character. My favourite is Old Snake from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, but what about David’s favourite?
“Maybe this is blasphemy to some, but as a character, I prefer Solid Snake from the original Metal Gear Solid to Big Boss/Naked Snake. I just have more empathy for him. Also, I love playing them all, but my favourite story is Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. I love playing Big Boss when he's Naked Snake, when he's at the beginning of his career. He's full of youthful fire, and he's not beaten down like Solid Snake is at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid.
“It’s cool seeing Naked Snake getting his heart (and arm) broken, as well as his eye shot out by Boss. He goes through hell, which eventually turns him into the man he’s become,” David continues. “I love James Bond, and the 60’s aesthetic for Metal Gear Solid 3 fits its story perfectly. It’s a tragic and beautiful tale.”
This August, Metal Gear Solid 3 is getting a remake powered by Unreal Engine 5. All scenes have been recreated faithfully, and the same dialogue and music will be reused, albeit remastered. The remake is also dropping the number three from its name, suggesting that this is the perfect beginning for a reboot. Not to mention that its story, chronologically, is the start of it all.
“I’ve been talking to people working on the remake, and everybody cares so much about recreating the original experience. Metal Gear Solid: Delta looks so beautiful, and the audio is spectacular. It makes me excited that if Konami were to remake other games in the series, it’s going to be a joy seeing them in the modern era with traditional gameplay mechanics. It’s cool for new fans to go back and experience this game in a new way,” David explains.
Leading up to the release of Metal Gear Solid: Delta, cast and crew members have got together to reminisce over the original Metal Gear Solid 3 in a YouTube series. In one episode, we finally learned the actor behind the voice of Eva is none other than Jodi Benson, a Disney legend who played Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989), and much more.
“I see Jodi all the time at Comic Cons, and originally, she wasn't comfortable revealing her name to have played Eva in Metal Gear Solid 3 because she thought Disney wouldn't be keen on her playing such a racy character. She’s kept this secret for two decades, and she had no idea how much of an impact Eva had had on the Metal Gear fans. It’s great that Jodi is finally getting all the love and appreciation she deserves.”
In 2001, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released on the PlayStation 2. However, there was a huge bait and switch from its creator, Hideo Kojima. Before the full game was released, there was a playable demo that, as we’d expect, let us play as the returning Solid Snake.
Yet, when the full game was released, an hour or three into the campaign, players no longer controlled Solid Snake, but instead, a fresh-faced FoxHound agent named Raiden. Let’s just say this bait and switch took most fans by surprise.
“It was news to me, too. I didn't get the script in advance. So we went in to record lines for the tanker incident. Then we switch to the next sequence, and Quinton Flynn, who brilliantly plays Raiden, starts talking to the crew and is shown how the controller works for the game. And I was like ‘hey, why is he doing that? That’s my job.’ Then I was told, in this game, you only play as Solid Snake in the beginning, and then for the rest of the game it’s Raiden.
“I was as miffed as anybody, and I don’t think fans came back to the sequel to play as a different character. I believe they wanted to play as Solid Snake. So instead, he became a mentor character to Raiden. It was still an amazing experience for me, and it’s such a great game. When I go to Comic Cons and I ask fans what their favourite game is, about 40% say Metal Gear Solid 2. Also, playing a cranky Solid Snake was awesome, and Quinton Flynn nails his performance. So it all worked out in the end.”
Metal Gear Solid 2 was not the only game that had taken fans and David Hayter by surprise. For the release of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, as well as its Ground Zeroes prologue, 24 and The Lost Boys actor, Kiefer Sutherland, was cast as Big Boss/Venom Snake.
“I heard that Konami was starting to work on Metal Gear Solid 5. When I was at a studio working on a different game, I bumped into one of Konami’s producers. So I said, ‘Should we start talking about Metal Gear Solid 5?’, and he replied, ‘No, we won't be needing you on this one’. That’s how I found out. I was pretty p*****.
“Soon after, Konami announced Keifer Sutherland. He’s a great actor and I’m a huge fan of his. But I knew, as busy as Keifer would be, it wouldn't be easy to get him in the recording booth for nine months, recording lines from scripts with thousands of pages,” explains David.
“I think the intention was to eventually have him as the new Snake going forward and maybe star in the Metal Gear movie. None of that came to pass. It was a long time ago now, and I’ve been screwed over worse since. That’s just Hollywood. But Metal Gear Solid 5 is still an amazing game and so much fun to play.”
I asked David what he’s most proud of in his life over the last year. After a chat entirely focused on an impressive and dedicated career, it’s heartening to hear his first answer has nothing to do with work.
“My daughter is about to graduate from college,” he tells me. “She’s an unbelievably focused and creative entity, and she’s studying film next year. I think you’ll be hearing her name a lot over the next couple of decades. I’m also proud that whether it’s Metal Gear Solid or Warrior Nun, they continue to inspire people and make them happy. I’m also proud that for 30 years, I’ve made a really good living doing what I love to do.”
Topics: Interview, Features, Retro Gaming, Metal Gear Solid, Konami, PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, TV And Film, Marvel