A while back it was revealed that an actor named Ray Porter was cast as the voice of Darkseid in Zack Snyder’s “Justice League” film – a cameo appearance that was ultimately cut from the theatrical version of the movie.
Darkseid of course is the cruel and manipulative god ruler of the war planet Apokolips, a universal tyrant created by the legendary Jack Kirby in his 1970s “Fourth World” comic storylines and which Marvel subsequently copied for their own version – Thanos.
Now, with “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” in the works for HBO Max next year, it’s expected we’ll finally see the famed comic book villain on the big screen. During a recent interview with LightCast (via ComicBook.com), Porter revealed what his Darkseid voice is going to sound like:
“There’s been a lot of questions on Twitter today, ‘Can you do the voice?’. It’s like no, that’s not going to happen. Let’s wait until 2021. You’ll hear it when I hear it [laughs]. I went through a few different sort of vocal gymnastic things in kind of trying to figure out the voice. I needed it to be understandable, but it needed to be a voice that was not of this Earth. And that’s what I tried to go for.
I can’t wait to hear it either, because also, while I did this voice and everybody was really, really nice about it. I know that in post they probably did stuff to it, and I can’t wait to hear that. Plus, the voice that I did, it wouldn’t be something that I could really project. It’s hard, hard on the vocal cords.”
Darkseid’s appearance was bookending the film – showing up both during the opening battle scene set millennia ago, and in the film’s final act but appearances were only set to be brief. It’s not clear how much the upcoming cut of the film will reveal of Porter’s character.
Porter was also asked if he has been asked to reprise the role for Ava DuVernay’s upcoming comic adaptation “The New Gods”. He says “No, I have not” at this stage and adds:
“I know a lot of people on Twitter have been making noise about it and I’m really grateful, and I love that, and obviously I’d love to hear from Ava about New Gods, but I also respect that Ava’s got a vision for this project. And if I’m not a part of that vision, that’s just the way it is, and that’s okay. My hope is that it’s something the fans are going to love as well. But I haven’t heard from Ava yet.”
In that case though, it’s likely Darkseid will be played by someone else, most likely someone more high profile.
