Contemporary Christian Music artist Phil Wickham’s voice is instantly recognizable to many music fans due to his hits including “Battle Belongs,” “This Is Amazing Grace,” and this year’s 16-week Christian Airplay chart-leader “What An Awesome God,” which also made its debut on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100.
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Starting Friday (Dec. 19), however, audiences will experience Wickham’s voice in an entirely new dimension.
Wickham portrays the voice of David in the new animated film David, which opens in theaters Dec. 19 and is distributed by Angel. The film, created by Sunrise Animation Studios’ Phil Cunningham, chronicles the Biblical story of David, as he ascends from the obscure role of a shepherd, triumphs over the giant Goliath, overcomes the jealousy and rage of King Saul, and rises to the role of King, but also doesn’t shy away from the characters failures, such as committing murder.
Actor Brandon Engman portrays the character in his youth, while Wickham voices David as an adult. For Wickham, stepping into the role was both unexpected and deeply meaningful.
“I’ve always wanted to voice a character since I was eight, singing along to The Lion King soundtrack,” Wickham tells Billboard, adding, “It’s a testament to how incredibly talented the whole team is that put this whole thing together. So much blood, sweat and tears from hundreds of people and for me to voice a character I care about a lot is a dream come true.”
Wickham first heard about the opportunity from a friend of a friend, who mentioned that Wickham’s name had come up during internal discussions about casting the vocal role of the adult David.
“He was like, ‘I don’t know if Phil can act at all,’ but he told me about that conversation and told me to call them if I was interested,” Wickham recalls.
Wickham’s first step into the process was a Zoom audition. Rather than taking on an easy scene for the initial audition, Wickham had to read the part of David in a moment of intense emotional conflict: when David is in confrontation with King Saul.
“Saul, who’s become kind of a father figure to David, he’s overbearing and a warrior. He turns on David because he finds out David was the one anointed to be the next king. Saul wants to kill David and David is reacting to this moment,” Wickham explains.
Casting director Ned Lott guided Wickham through the scene, emphasizing David’s unique position at that moment in his life.
“He was like, ‘David has commanded armies now, he’s very capable, but he’s also a shepherd at heart and has compassion. He loves this King and would never want to take a hand against him, and you’ve got to react with all that stuff in mind,’” Wickham says. “Then I hear Saul’s voice that was already prerecorded and it’s this epic, booming actor. I remember getting intimidated and saying the lines almost kind of whiny and scared.”
Lott encouraged Wickham to approach the scene from a different emotional perspective.
Wickham says, “He was like, ‘Picture talking to someone you’ve had a longstanding trust and relationship with, but maybe he’s gotten to the point in life where he’s a little senile and thinks you did something horrible that you never did and you’re trying to calm him down and reason with him. You still respect him, but you also know he can’t take you. You have the upper hand.’ That really lit something in my heart and he let me go through the whole scene again, and afterward, he was like, ‘That felt special.’”
A week later, Wickham received a call that confirmed his casting.
“Ned said, ‘Phil, what is your middle name again?’ and I said, ‘David,’ and he said, ‘Well how would you like for that to be your first name in the animated movie?’ So that was awesome.”
Recording sessions took place in Burbank, California, where Wickham recorded his vocal part to storyboards and other film art. Along the way, Wickham discovered just how physical voice acting can be.
“If I was supposed to sound like I was struggling against the flow of an army trying to go the other way, I literally had someone holding me back in the studio and I was trying my hardest to get to the microphone,” he says. “And there’s a moment where the character chokes on water and I literally and drinking water and there’s a bowl there for me to spit it out so it really sounded like it.”
Though Wickham is a Grammy-nominated artist with years of studio experience, he says singing as David proved to be the most difficult part of the project.
“I couldn’t lean on so many quirks and habits I’ve made over the years as a singer, like I lean on certain vowels or notes,” he says. “When I would lean into my habits as an artist, it was like, ‘Now you sound like how you’re recording your records and that doesn’t sound like David.’ Telling the story through song and carrying the emotion was way more important than getting a great pop vocal. I had to set aside all I had gotten used to, and even ego aside as an artist, because I’m like, ‘Man, as a singer, I could sing this so much better,’ but David, his voice would be so full of emotion that I was almost like talking the lyrics.”
In addition to voicing David, Wickham also has one of his songs featured in the film’s closing credits. The song, titled “Psalm 8,” further connects his voice to the movie’s story arc. While Wickham says he’s unsure whether traditional acting is in his future, the experience made him open to doing more voice acting.
“There’s something about hiding behind an animated character that made it very fun and free,” he says, adding, “Maybe if it’s a full character in a film or a couple of lines in a videogame or something, I wouldn’t mind doing that,” he says.
Wickham says he hopes David ultimately offers audiences more than simply entertainment.
“I hope that this David movie is just another kind of hinge point in people’s lives to help them understand or see maybe even for the first time that they’re not alone, that like David says, that the Lord is my shepherd, that we can place our lives in the hands of the good shepherd and that he cares for his sheep. I hope people are blessed by this movie and not just in an entertaining way, but a deep spiritual way, too.”
