Khary Payton on Potentially Playing Cyborg in Live Action DC Film (Exclusive)

Next year will be big for DC and the new DC Universe will launch with the film Superman: Legacy. But could we see a longtime member of a DC animated series make the transition to the live-action world? PopCulture.com spoke to Khary Payton who voices Cyborg in the Cartoon Network series Teen Titans Go! The 51-year-old actor was asked if he would love to play Cyborg in a DC Universe film. 

“I’d do whatever they ask. We are living in such a cool time, man,” Payton told PopCulture. “I was a kid of where superheroes were comic books, cartoons a little bit, but really superheroes lived on the page. The coolest thing about being a dad at this point in my life is that my son and my daughter are coming up in a time where all of those things that are on the page, they’re going up on the big screen, and you get to see the things that you imagine in your mind becoming real. I remember in the ’80s, they had this horrible Spider-Man movie of the week or something. It was the goofiest thing you ever saw and just thinking about when Spider-Man in the MCU came on in Captain America Civil War when he popped into that airport and just went crazy.

Payton continued: “Spider-Man has always been my favorite because he was a skinny little kid who was just a little nerd, but then you put that mask on and he became something different. I feel like that was me when I went on stage. I jumped on stage and man, you couldn’t tell me what to do. So yeah, to me, this is just the most amazing time to be a kid who saw it on the page as a kid, and now you’re able to introduce it to your kid in live action. Yeah, yeah, to be a part of something like that would be really cool.”

Payton has voiced Cyborg in Teen Titans Go! since the show launched in 2013. The character has also been voiced by Ernie Hudson, Shemar Moore and Zeno Robinson in other animated projects. Cyborg has also been seen in live-action television and movies. Most recently, Ray Fisher portrayed the character in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League in the DC Extended Universe. 

It’s not known if Cyborg will be featured in the DC Universe, but after seeing what Payton did as King Ezekiel on The Walking Dead, he would have no issues taking on Cyborg in a live-action role.