Interview With Mark Walton, The Voice Of Rhino In Disney's Bolt

By George 'El Guapo' Roush on September 19, 2008

Missed earlier Bolt coverage?

Click HERE for my set visit report.

Click HERE for an interview with Lighting Supervisor Adolph Lusinsky.

Click HERE for an interview with Storyboard Supervisor Nathan Greno.

Wrapping up our Bolt coverage this week is an interview with story artist Mark Walton. But that wasn't his only job in this upcoming 3-D comedy, he also voices one of the main characters, a wacky hamster named Rhino. When we got into the sound room, some of us volunteered to go behind the mic and re-enact a scene from Bolt. I played the role of Mittens the cat, while Devin from Chud played Rhino and Silas from Coming Soon voiced Bolt. It was pretty cool standing and working the mic in the room Disney uses for voiceover work in its animated features. I have to say, I think we did a better job than those hack actors they hired! Well, except for you Mark...

Mark talks about the big surprise he received when informed he got the job, and what it's like to voice a character in a Disney cartoon.

Walton: I don't know if they talked about this at all, but I'm actually a story artist. I do some visual development and some character development and what usually happens in the early development of the film is that when they want to see how the story is working they'll grab people like me, secretaries, other artists to do temporary voices that are close to what they want. They'll film story drawings and put temporary music and sound FX in there to play it on the screen and see how long it takes, see how well it's playing. The intention being that they'll be replaced with actual movie stars or professional actors at any rate. In my case they seemed to like what I was doing well enough that they ended up keeping me through the final version of the film. I keep waiting for them to realize what a mistake they're making. If they don't I'll enjoy it while it lasts. As you probably know each person is usually recorded one at a time. So I've never met John Travolta or Miley Cyrus. I will hopefully meet them some day before the movie comes out.

 

There seems to be a little trend of animators and directors doing voice work.

Walton: Yeah, isn't it great. Lucky me.

Does that make it easier for you at all?

Walton: I guess that it gave me some hope. Doing this is such great fun, a wild open character to play. Doing the scratch and recording for it, even if that's only as far as it would've gone, even that is a lot of fun. People always say, 'Oh, it wouldn't be great if you stay in the movie?' But it's hard to count on something like this. Things change. Movies get canceled and things get changed around, but because I knew the people at Pixar, I know the company's head like Joe Rams and Chris it was like, 'Maybe they actually decided to keep me in the movie. To me the most important thing is that whoever is right for the part whether that's a nobody or whether that's a big name actor or singer, as long as they're the best person for the role that's what really matters. I think ideally people go to the movie and they don't even think about who's doing [the voice], at least not once they get into the film. They just accept them as the character. Maybe it's easier for somebody that most people aren't familiar with, just accepting them readily, but I think that anyone can be right for the part. I'm just lucky that for me it worked out this way.

 

When did it become obvious they were going to keep you?

Walton: Well, again, I was really reluctant to believe it until I was told absolutely, definitely. They kept having more and more screenings where I kept expecting them to talk about who was going to do the role and they never really nailed it down. More and more people at the studio who knew me were like, 'Oh, you've got to do the role. You're so great.' But you always think that's because they know me and it's funny for them to see someone they know doing the part and that doesn't mean that I'm actually the best person. It got to the point where people were like, 'Okay, we've got to make a decision one way or the other soon.' They brought me down back in November to the studio to, I thought, to rerecord one of the lines which I've done a lot. They'll be like, 'You were a little too slow or a little too quiet or you slurred this last one. Can we pick it up one more time with feeling this time?' So they had me down here reading it and I get to the end and it was like, 'Oh, Bolt's amazing. He can smash bridges, he has heat vision with his eyes and I'm the voice of…Rhino?' I was like, 'Are you serious? I got the part.' So they saw me jumping up and down and screaming like a girl and giving everyone a hug.

Did they record that?

Walton: Later I found out that they had a video-camera there the whole time. Then they made the announcement to the whole crew and they actually played that on this giant screen for everybody. So at that point I was hoping they weren't going to change their minds because that would've really pissed me off. So I dared to believe at that point that it was really going to happen.

So then you have the opposite story of someone who almost made it, going, 'Yeah, I was almost in the film.'

Walton: Yeah, well, that's the thing. You have to be prepared in this business for things to change on a dime and for people to say, 'Absolutely! Absolutely…well…-' and things don’t sometimes work out way the you want. Sometimes it's for very good reasons. I don't know though, maybe even more so when I started seeing the trailers and my voice was in the trailers. I was like, 'Wow. This is really going to happen.'

 

Is Rhino one of those characters who could get spun-off into his own thing?

Walton: We'll see. I can only hope. That would be pretty awesome. Obviously, it depends on how well the film does and how people react to the character. I think he could. I think he's pretty wide open. As someone who watches television all day I think you could play him a number of different situations and stories and hopefully it'd still be pretty entertaining. We'll wait and see.

Do you have any prior acting experience?

Walton: Not really professionally. I liked acting in high school and college. I enjoyed it. I think at some point I decided that if I was really going to be a professional actor that it would take at least everything that I would have emotionally or physically and I knew that I really wanted to pursue art. So I thought that this would be something that I could do for me for fun on the side. I don't know that I would've had what it would've taken to really make that work, but it's great even just boarding because you kind of have to act a little bit, or at least when you're trying to think of the emotional reactions that a character would and trying to get inside their heads and thinking about what poses they would take. What little experience I've had has hopefully helped me be a better board artist and in this case I got to do this as well and it's pretty cool.

It strikes me that it's hard to be in a booth doing a voice in general because you're not playing against anything else or anyone else. How do you make sure that you're in Rhino's head the whole time?

Walton: Well, they actually did a really…not that it's always a bad experience, but this was an unusually good experience. I've actually done some scratch for a few years now and then. I've done some little roles in a couple of other films too. Sometimes they'll just give you the script page and a very cursory explanation of what's happening in the scene before you get on and know what's going to happen and you have to, yeah, sort of rely on whatever the director or whoever's directing the session, what they tell you. In this case they showed me a lot of storyboards of the scene and kind of what the poses should be like and they would give me a lot of explanation as to where the character's head was it. Sometimes Chris [Williams] would even be in the recording booth with me reading the other lines to just kind of get a feel for what the pace would be and the interplay between the characters. But really I think part of the reason that they picked me for this is because they know I'm kind of an excitable and enthusiastic fanboy. Maybe they felt like it wasn't that big of a stretch for me to get excited about things. The character loves Bolt. He's excited about being with Bolt and doing anything with Bolt and that pretty much covers most of what happens in the film. So hopefully that's fun to watch.

Trying to take a bite out of Doink!, the Disney pet used as a real life model

for Rhino. Lucky for Doink!, he's in safe hands with Mark Walton.

Once again, thanks to everyone at Disney for the great set visit!!

Source:Latinoreview

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  Comments

• Fri Nov 21 at 11:47 EST

  Way to go, Mark! Eons ago at Ensign Elementary, we all knew Mark was destined for something big! Congrats from your Avenues friends.

  Author: Michele Hanks Thompson | Permalink

• Soooo Proud! Thu Nov 20 at 21:56 EST

  I've known Mark forever and ever. He grew up with my children and we have all just loved this guy. When he said he did some acting in high school........what he should have said was "I stole the show". Mark was professional the moment he stepped onto the stage. He is a man of great talent. He is a man of integrity. He is a man of great kindness Our family considers themselves blessed to know a young man who has great talent and a humble heart.

  Author: Karen Brown | Permalink

• BOLT Sat Sep 20 at 12:49 EST

  Let it begin!!!

  Author: J W | Permalink

• Nice Sat Sep 20 at 09:02 EST

  I am privileged to know Mark personally. Mark is as kind, generous, and humble a man as you will ever find. I am very happy for him to get this part, and glad that Disney thought "out of the box" to give him the opportunity.

  Author: Andy Airriess | Permalink

• Egad! Fri Sep 19 at 19:23 EST

  I can't believe I said "pissed" in that interview! Such language! I've been in Hollywood too long. I think in one of the earlier comments, I meant to say that I knew that people at Pixar, like Joe Ranft (a story department head) and Lou Romano (an awesome vis dev artist, who was Linguini in "Ratatouie") were able to have their "scratch" stay in the movie, so maybe it might work out for me too. But clearly the transmission from my brain to my mouth got derailed (as it often does)!

  Author: Mark Walton | Permalink

• Whoops! Fri Sep 19 at 19:17 EST

  Permalink

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