David Keith says a scammer impersonated Keith David but gave his name: 'Do you think I'm Black?'

It can be easy to mix up the names David Keith and Keith David. Just ask a confused scammer.

In their first-ever joint interview, the two prolific character actors discussed constantly being mistaken for one another, on the latest episode of the What Are We Talking About? podcast. In one amusing anecdote, Keith (who starred in films like An Officer and a Gentleman and Firestarter) reflected on a particularly puzzling case of inaccurate identification.

"I get a phone call from this young Israeli woman who said that I ripped her off for $650," Keith began. "[She said] I told her that I would help her career, help her get an agent, help her with acting, all this stuff for $650."

Keith had no recollection of any interaction with the woman. "I said, 'No, I did not do that,' and she said, 'Yes you did.' and she called me a lot," he continued. "And it finally came down to, I just had a thought, and I said, 'Could you be talking about Keith David?'" The actor then asked a question that would clear up the matter once and for all: "I said, 'Do you think I'm Black?'"

The question was met with "dead silence," until the woman eventually responded, "You're not Black?" and Keith said, "Nope." After that, Keith thought he'd solved the case. "So somebody impersonated Keith David and possibly used my name instead, and strung this girl along in New York."

David, who starred in films like The Thing and They Live, was flabbergasted hearing the story: "Get outta here! No, s---!"

Keith joked, "I thought, 'Maybe Keith had a little lull in his career…'" while David remained flummoxed, replying, "Oh my God."

Earlier in the interview, Keith talked about receiving confusing requests from fans. "The confusion between me and Keith has entered my fan mail," he said. "You know, I sign pictures and baseballs all the time, and every once in a while, I get a picture of Keith. And so I flip it over, write 'Not me,' and mail it back."

The strangeness doesn't end there. "Here's the crazy part: sometimes I get a picture of Keith and a picture of me combined in the same envelope," David continued. "I'm like 'What the hell?'"

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Elsewhere in their conversation, David discussed taking over the voice of Commander Zavala in the video game Destiny after the original voice actor, Fringe's Lance Reddick, died in 2023. "I met Lance a few times and I loved his work. He was a really wonderful actor," David began. "When someone transitions and then you're called to take over — I mean, it's an honor. It's happened to me twice. I took over City Confidential when Paul Winfield passed away. And at first, they wonder, 'Are you gonna imitate the guy before?' Well, no, but I'm gonna honor what I thought they brought to the table, and in the spirit of what they brought to the table, I'm gonna try to embrace the spirit of the character that they created, and then I just try to make it my own from there. But I'm especially not trying to be different just to be different."

The two character actors also reflected on some of their most iconic roles. Keith broke down one of the standout scenes in An Officer and a Gentleman. "People ask me 'How did you swallow the ring?', right?" he said. "Of course, I just put it under my tongue, and they cut, and it's not in my mouth after the cut. But I tell people, 'You know that invisible string they use in movies? They had that attached to the ring and I actually swallowed it and pulled it out of my esophagus each time.' And you should see people: they don't know whether to believe it or not, 'cause I deliver it pretty well."

Meanwhile, David weighed in on a fan debate about the logic of his movie Armageddon, wherein some viewers (including costar Ben Affleck in a DVD commentary) suggested that it would make more sense to train astronauts how to drill into an asteroid, rather than the movie's premise of teaching drillers how to be astronauts. "You also have to train to be a good drill-rigger," David opined. "And in the amount of time that they had, given the unknown elements of the density of the planet and all that kind of stuff — their experience would come in handier than an astronaut, not having any of that experience, would be able to navigate under the circumstances that they found themselves in. Even in their experience, they had to come up with some stuff that they had never done before."

Keith also took the opportunity to praise David's work in one of his breakout projects. "I didn't know who he was before Platoon, and I saw Platoon, and I sat there and said, 'Who in the hell is this guy that's stealing every single scene he's in in this movie?'" Keith recalled. "[He] stole the whole movie! It's because he is so charismatic. He just exudes this power. When you're casting an authoritative figure, you want that raw power. And he has that, man, out the wazoo." David responded with gratitude: "Thank you, brother."

Listen to the full conversation between Keith David and David Keith on What Are We Talking About? above.