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, 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.

Career

Early acting career

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, taking over the role of protagonist Sean Barker from previous actor Jack Armstrong.

Metal Gear series

In 1998, Hayter voiced protagonist Solid Snake in the highly successful video game Metal Gear Solid. He would reprise the role in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (a remake of the original), Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (where the character appears in aged form as Old Snake). Hayter also voiced Solid Snake's genetic predecessor, Naked Snake, who serves as the protagonist in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, which were prequels set prior to the events of the original Metal Gear. Hayter has an extended live-action cameo as himself in Metal Gear Solid 4 in one of the fictional TV programs prior to the start of the game. In the scene, he wears the "Solid Eye", the technologically advanced eye patch that Old Snake wears throughout the game.

Hayter is one of the few Metal Gear Solid actors to have played and completed the Metal Gear games he's voiced in, 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 Twin Snakes.

His work with Metal Gear Solid has also led Hayter to do voice work in other video game projects such as Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and Star Wars: The Old Republic. He also cited the Metal Gear Solid 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."

Following the announcement of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in 2013, Hayter announced that he was not asked to reprise his role as Snake. This was later confirmed on June 6, when Konami announced that Kiefer Sutherland would be the new voice of Snake. Hayter has since revealed in an interview that he had to re-audition for the role of Snake in Metal Gear Solid 3 and 4, suggesting that Kojima was already considering recasting the part much earlier, with Kurt Russell (who played Snake Plissken, the inspiration for Solid Snake, in Escape from New York and Escape from L.A.) having allegedly been offered the role during the development of MGS3. Despite this, Hayter would later reprise his role as Solid Snake in a Metal Gear Solid-themed advertisement for the 2016 Ford Focus SE.

Filmmaking

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.

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." 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.

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.

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.

Filmography

Anime

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1997	They Were Eleven	Doricas Soldam IV
1999-2001	Fushigi Yûgi	Tamahome / Taka Sukunami / Yoshui
2000	The Castle of Cagliostro	Arsène Lupin III
2000	Rakusho! Hyper Doll	Reporter
2000-01	Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure	Additional Voices
2001	Yu Yu Hakusho: The Movie	Kurama
2001	Street Fighter II V	Additional Voices
2001	Moldiver	Hiroshi Ozora
2002	Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket	Bernard Wiseman
2004	Giant Robo: The Animation	Shoji Gen

Animation

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996-7	Spider-Man: The Animated Series	Captain America	TV series; 8 episodes
2009	Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?	Snake	1 episode; "The Sons of Big Boss"

Video Games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	Metal Gear Solid	Solid Snake
2001	Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty	Solid Snake
2002	Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem	Roman Legionnaire 1 / Roman Legionnaire 2 / Angkor Thom Guard
2004	Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes	Solid Snake
	Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater	Naked Snake
2005	Metal Gear Acid 2	Snake
2006	Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops	Naked Snake
2008	Super Smash Bros. Brawl	Solid Snake
	Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots	Old Snake / Himself
2010	Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker	Snake (Big Boss)
2011	Star Wars: The Old Republic	Jedi Knight Male
2013	Marvel Heroes	Winter Soldier
2013-15	République	Daniel Zager
2014	Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty!	Mudokons
2015	Dragon Age: Inquisition	Lieutenant Renn	The Descent DLC
2016	The Long Dark
	Deponia Doomsday	Old Rufus
2017	Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night	Gebel

Live action

Year	Film	Director	Producer	Writer	Actor	Role	Notes
1993	Major Dad	No	No	No	Yes	Misha Sarotsky	1 episode; "From Russia with Like"
1994	Guyver: Dark Hero	No	No	No	Yes	Sean Barker	Main role
	Long Shadows	No	No	No	Yes	Ed's secretary	TV movie
1996	The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century	No	No	No	Yes	??? (voice)	2 episodes; "Stalemate" and "Total War"
1997	Drive	No	No	No	Yes	Cop #1
1998	Burn	No	Yes	No	Yes	Tom Rice	Main role
2000	Wild on the Set	No	No	No	Yes	Narrator	TV series
	X-Men	No	No	Yes	Yes	Museum Cop
2002	Lost in Oz	No	Yes	Yes	No		TV movie
	The Scorpion King	No	No	Yes	No
2003	X2: X-Men United	No	No	Yes	No
2008	Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots	No	No	No	Yes	Himself - Celebrity Moralist
2009	Watchmen	No	No	Yes	No
2010	Chasm	Yes	No	Yes	No		Short
2014	Devil's Mile	No	No	No	Yes	Toby McTeague	Main role
	Wolves	Yes	No	Yes	No		Directorial debut
2015	A Christmas Horror Story	No	Yes	No	No		Executive producer only
2016	The Flash	No	No	No	Yes	King Shark	Voice Only

[ Source: Wikipedia ]