Having trained at the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre (Ensatt) in the Rue Blanche and later at the Conservatoire in classes taught by Pierre Vial and Michel Bouquet, Gilles David made his debut in 1983 in Musset’s Lorenzaccio by René Jauneau. He reunited with Jauneau for The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Beaumont and Fletcher. Jean Mercure directed him in Ben Jonson’s Volpone and so did Jean-Pierre Miquel in Camus' Les Justes, Maurice Bénichou in Chekhov’s The Three Sisters and Antoine Vitez in Victor Hugo's Lucrezia Borgia, Paul Claudel’s Satin Slipper and Raymond Lepoutre’s Un transport amoureux.

In 1990, Feydeau’s La Dame de chez Maxim was the start of a long partnership with Alain Françon who would go on to direct him in Edward Bond's The War Plays, In the Company of Men and Coffee; in Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II and in Michel Vinaver's Les Huissiers. Gilles David worked with Joël Jouanneau on Dostoyevsky’s Idiot, Didier Bezace on Molière’s School for Wives (L’École des femmes), Jean-Pierre Vincent on Lagarce’s Derniers remords avant l’oubli, Benoît Lambert on Brecht’s Mr Puntila and His Man Matti and Christophe Perton on Edward Bond_’s Lear_. In 2005, he joined the Théâtre national de Strasbourg, run by Stéphane Braunschweig, who had cast him in Brecht’s In the Jungle of Cities in 1997. There, he played in Pirandello’s Clothing the Naked, Hanoch Levin’s Dreaming Child and in Chekhov’s Three Sisters.

Having joined the Comédie-Française on the 1st of December 2007, he became the Troupe’s 527th sociétaire on the 1st of January 2014. Jacques Lassalle directed him first in Figaro Gets a Divorce by Ödön von Horváth then in Molière's The School for Wives (L’École des femmes), Pierre Pradinas in Molière's Le Mariage forcé and Marc Paquien in Mirbeau’s Business is Business (Les affaires sont les affaires). For Jean-Pierre Vincent, he played in Ubu roi by Alfred Jarry, Dom Juan by Molière and La Dame aux jambes d’azur by Eugène Labiche. Dan Jemmett cast him in Eduardo De Filippo’s La Grande Magie and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Equally at ease in all the genres, he could be seen in Poussière written and directed by Lars Norén, Feydeau’s Un fil à la patte by Jérôme Deschamps, Labiche’s An Italian Straw Hat by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Molière’s Misanthrope by Clément Hervieu-léger, Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet by Éric Ruf as well as in Robert Carsen’s staging of Shakespeare’s Tempest. Having directed him in Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and then in Victor Hugo’s Lucrezia Borgia, Denis Podalydès cast him as Argante in Molière’s Les Fourberies de Scapin, which he staged at the Salle Richelieu in 2017.

In 2009, Alain Françon envisaged him as Fyodor Ilyich Kulygin in Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Both collaborated three years later collaborated on the staging of Feydeau’s monologues Cercle des castagnettes, which Gilles David interpreted at the Studio-Théâtre. In 2016, he directed some actors of the Company in Michel Vinaver’s La Demande d’emploi. Outside the Comédie-Française, he completed the staging of The Worlds by Edward Bond, 63 regards by Christophe Pellet, Meilleurs souvenirs de Grado (Herzliche Grüsse aus Grado) by Kroetz and Grounded (Clouée au sol) by George Brant.

On film, he worked with Alain Chabat on RRRrrr!!!, Valérie Lemercier on Palais Royal !, Nicole Garcia on Charlie Says (Selon Charlie), Aurélia Georges on The Walking Man (L’homme qui marche), and Benoit Jacquot on Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux à la reine). On the other hand, Pierre Aknine, Bernard Stora, José Giovanni, Nina Companeez, Dominique Cabrera, Laurent Heynemann, Vincent Macaigne and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi cast him for television features.

Since 2014, he has been teaching interpretation at the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique (CNSAD).

During the 2018/2019 season, Gilles David will be playing in Fanny and Alexandre after Ingmar Bergman directed by Julie Deliquet and in the rerun of Victor Hugo’s Lucrezia Borgia by Denis Podalydès, Molière’s Fourberies de Scapin by Denis Podalydès as well as that of Feydeau’s Free Exchange Hotel (L’Hôtel du Libre-Échange) by Isabelle Nanty.