Destiny 2’s Commander Zavala, Lance Reddick, on his character’s future

Lance Reddick was the actor responsible for Lt. Daniels’ in. The Wire and Charon the concierge in the John Wick movies, is also the voice of one of Destiny’s oldest and most important characters: the Titan Vanguard Commander Zavala.

Reddick also enjoys being an avid reader Destiny 2 player. And he isn’t shy about it.

Reddick, who has shared many videos with Destiny fans via Twitter for over a decade, has been regularly engaging with them. him recording in his closetOr recording fan-requested lines using his Zavala character voice. But with Commander Zavala’s recent brush with death in Season of the Chosen — and Bungie’s clear willingness to kill off Vanguards voiced by popular actors — I’ve started to worry about the future of one of my favorite Destiny characters.

Recent interview: Destiny 2 – The Witch Queen, the game’s upcoming expansion, I asked game director Joe Blackburn and project lead Blake Battle about how Reddick’s presence in the community could affect his character. Does fans’ love for him, and his apparent love for the fans, make it hard to kill off the Tower’s commander in the future?

“I think people love Lance Reddick, we love Lance Reddick, we love Zavala,” said Blackburn. “I definitely think that we would always make the choices based off what Destiny needs to do first. We love Lance as both a Voice Actor for us and as a prominent Guardian. […] We obviously have plans for Zavala — Zavala could go a lot of different ways — but Lance is a pretty flexible actor in his range. […] So that leaves the door pretty wide open for us with Zavala.”

Zavala carries a lot of weight in Destiny’s story, playing both immovable Tower bureaucrat and level-headed commander, depending on the situation. It’s hard to think of how the Destiny story could proceed into its “Light and Darkness saga” without his nagging voice in your ear, trusting but nervous. This is what Blackburn appears to be saying. While it’s certainly possible something could happen to Zavala down the line, it seems he may have some character evolution to go through first.

Still, there’s always that twinge of fear over beloved characters and what fate might befall them. So I sent Blackburn’s quote to Reddick himself to get his opinion on Zavala’s future.

“Well, first of all, it’s funny, because in one of my more recent recording sessions, I actually asked them if they were killing me off,” said Reddick in an email to Polygon. “To which they replied with an answer. (Obviously I’m not gonna say what it is [winky-face emoji]). At any rate, in some ways it’s hard for me to get a gauge of my Zavala’s character arc over the years because working on the game has been so sporadic in the midst of the rest of my acting career, but also because, although I play Destiny almost every day (I’m even part of a clan now), once I’ve played through each iteration of the game, as time goes on I kind of forget about the story and just focus on powering up and getting cool weapons and grinding through playlists. At the end of the day, I’m just a big fan who also happens to voice one of the characters.”

Mat Hayward/Getty Photos for Activision

When Reddick says “recent recording sessions,” it’s unclear if he means for the upcoming The Witch QueenExpanding or something further down the line. With how often and “sporadic” his recordings can be, it’s also possible that the recording session he was referring to has already come to pass in the game, potentially when Zavala almost bit the big one last year. Either way, it’s nice to see that the voice behind Zavala is able to kick back and relax in a way his character never could — even if Reddick mains a WarlockEven though the Titan Vanguard is depicted, it was not.

Reddick was open about how he interacts with Destiny and the reasons he spends so much of his time to talk with them.

“Honestly I engage with the Destiny fans differently because they engage with me differently from my other fans,” he said. “I don’t think the fan base is necessarily any bigger than my other fan bases (particularly the John Wick fans and the Bosch They are the most loyal fans. And for a while it felt like nothing else I’d done in my career was as significant to them. It’s like ‘he’s Zavala, and maybe occasionally he does some other stuff, but we can’t be worried about that! He’s Zavala!’”

While Zavala hasn’t always been the most popular character in the Destiny community — partially because of his unwillingness to fly off and avenge Cayde-6 in Forsaken — Reddick has helped shift that narrative by engaging with players. But from what I’ve heard, Reddick has always enjoyed engaging with Destiny players. Reddick could have offered to help Bungie’s show, according to rumors. Destiny 2To satisfy the eager customers at kiosks, I closed my interview by asking him if that was something he remembers doing.

“Actually, I’ve done that twice,” said Reddick. “I was at the initial launch party back in 2014 and then again in, I believe it was Vegas, when they were launching Destiny 2. As a matter of fact there’s a picture of me at the initial launch party with Common and Joe Manganiello. It was great fun. It was fun to play the game at the original party. I wasn’t much of a gamer at the time, so I kind of sucked, but it was fun. The Destiny 2Launch was a time when I was more of the brand, so I gave a large presentation on the stage. That was kind of Steve Jobs. Then I met a number of people involved in the development of the game as well as Bungie’s CEO. It was great.”

Reddick transcended Zavala to become an important member of the community. It is obvious that Reddick, a famed actor and voice actor, loves Destiny and wants to share that love with others. And while I don’t know where Zavala’s character will go in the future — although I have high hopes he’ll be around for a long time yet — it’s clear that Reddick will always be a fellow Guardian.