Who voices President Curtis in Rick and Morty? You've heard him in everything from Gargoyles to Coraline
That voice — the one that can make a Cromulon singing contest sound like DEFCON 1 — belongs to an actor with more than 300 credits, three Emmys, and a Tony nomination. There's a good chance he's been narrating your life since about 1994.
The short answer
Keith David voices President Andre Curtis. He's had the role since season 2's "Get Schwifty" in 2015, where the President drags Rick and Morty into saving Earth from an alien talent show. He also voiced the parasite Reverse Giraffe in the same season's "Total Rickall."
Where else you've heard him
- Goliath in Gargoyles (1994–1997) — for a lot of people, the voice that got there first.
- The Cat in Coraline (2009) — Laika's deadpan stop-motion guide, and the closest thing that movie has to a straight man.
- Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog (2009) — released the same year, and about as far from the Cat as you can get.
- The Arbiter in the Halo games — plus David Anderson in Mass Effect and Sgt. Foley in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
- Al Simmons in Spawn — HBO 's animated series, a role he later reprised in Mortal Kombat 11.
- Everything else — the Flame King in Adventure Time, King Andrias in Amphibia, Julius Little in Saints Row, and narration on Ken Burns documentaries including The War.
On camera, he debuted in John Carpenter's The Thing in 1982, brawled with Roddy Piper in They Live, and appeared in Platoon. Recently he's turned up in Abbott Elementary, High Potential, and Duster.
The character himself
He spent years as just "The President." The surname Curtis didn't arrive until season 5. Created by Wes Archer and Tom Kauffman and designed by Justin Roiland, he was modeled on whoever happened to be in office — Obama in "Get Schwifty," Trump by season 3's "The Rickchurian Mortydate," which ends with the President and Rick demolishing the White House in single combat.
He got his own show
Adult Swim announced President Curtis at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2025, with David appearing onstage as a surprise. The spinoff premiered July 26, 2026 at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT, immediately after the Rick and Morty season 9 finale, streaming on HBO Max the next day. Dan Harmon and James Siciliano created it; Stephanie Beatriz and Jim Rash co-star. The premise is the workload Rick can't be bothered with — interdimensional diplomacy, paranormal investigations, unexplained phenomena.
"President Curtis has always been a blast to play," David said in a 2025 statement carried by Variety.
For the record: Rash and David are both Community alumni, which makes the spinoff a Harmon reunion twice over.