David Kohlsmith recalls ‘Shazam!’ and talks passion for acting

At ten years of age, Canada’s David Kohlsmith has a formidable acting career. While his schoolmates are on the playground, he is on the film set. He has always been a gifted child, looking for new challenges that excite him, and acting has proven to be his niche.

“The bar for acting is much higher than in school as you are expected to be professional and prepared. You are always treated like an equal by the rest of the cast and crew but with a lot of care and understanding for the fact that you are first and foremost a child,” says David.

David has been in more productions than he has in years of age. His extensive resume features award-winning films like The Prodigy, the popular horror that led to him winning the 2019 Joey Award for Best Featured Actor in a Feature Film, the acclaimed Syfy series Chucky, based off the iconic Child’s Play franchise, and the highly-anticipated drama The Boy in the Woods based off the best-selling memoir by Maxwell Smart detailing the remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. He has worked alongside top Hollywood talent and spends each and every day doing what he loves.

“When I was shooting my first two feature films, I got to meet Zachary Levi, who was the voice of Eugene in my favorite movie at the time, Tangled. Shortly after, I met and worked with director Clay Kaytis on The Christmas Chronicles, who also worked on the movie Tangled. It is always cool when you are working with someone you have seen in a movie or was involved in your favorite movie. It is a really special feeling,” says David.

It was the smash hit Shazam! where David made his extraordinary debut into feature films, starring his idol, Zachary Levi. Shazam! premiered at the famed TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood on March 28, 2019 and went on to gross over $365 million at the box office and received extremely positive reviews upon its release, making it one of the best reviewed DC Comic films to date. 

Based on the comics of the same name, Shazam! follows Billy Baston, a newly fostered young boy in search of his mother who instead finds unexpected superpowers and soon gains a powerful enemy. David plays the 5-year-old Billy Batson and tells the story of how young Billy lost his mother and how his journey to become reunited with her began, an essential part of the story and the understanding of Billy’s future motives. David’s heartbreaking performance brings a human aspect to an otherwise otherworldly story.

“Playing a superhero is the dream of every child, and getting to be the young version of the superhero is as close as a child actor can get! I played the younger version of Zachary Levi who is one of my all-time favorite actors. He came to me and introduced himself and that made my day! He is very tall and looks like the perfect superhero,” recalls David.

One of the best parts about filming Shazam! for David was that it gave him an opportunity to explore his improvisation talents, allowing for an authentic performance of getting lost in a crowd and losing his mother. He also provided notes on how to improve the direction of the scene, a remarkable feat for a five-year-old, suggesting that the crowd needed to tighten up and make it harder to get through, as it looked too spread out and would make the pivotal scene less believable.


“What I like the most about the story of Shazam! is how even though Billy Batson has lost his compassion for people because of how his young life was turned upside down, his soul still remains pure, and the wizard was able to see this and make him as strong and amazing on the outside as he is on the inside,” he says.

David’s intuition regarding his scene paid off and he was nominated for a Young Artist Award in 2020 for Best Performance in a Feature Film. With that much talent at such a young age, we can all be very excited to see where his career continues.

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