O rigina lly the temporary voice
for a bit character inspired by Pixar
studio head John Lasseter’s pet
chinchilla, Walton found that both
the part-time gig and the role’s
scope quickly took on a life of their
own. “I assumed at some point
they’d get a professional to replace
me,” the bespectacled animator says.
“But, to my surprise and delight, they
didn’t. [Director] Chris Williams just
wanted me to be myself.”
A self-described “sci-fi and animation
nerd” who adores Hellboy c omics and author
Ray Bradbury, this gushing geek—see: his
movie poster collection, his childlike love of
classic cartoons—is hardly Entertainment
Tonight material. Unlike co-star John Travolta
(who plays Bolt) and teen sensation Miley
Cyrus (who plays Penny, the owner whose
“kidnapping” sends the pooch scurrying cross-country), Walton has no formal acting training, hands-on experience or Tinseltown cachet.
What he did have that ultimately clinched the
show-stealing part, so popular it eclipsed even
the flick’s ostensible headliners, were a few
friends in the filming department, a shameless
fanboy’s overflowing enthusiasm and a seem-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 33
Bolt, out
of the blu e
arts &
entertainment
How Mark Walton gained
overnight fame as Rhino,
America’s favorite roden t
By Scott Steinberg
BOLT IS ABOUT A scrappy
white dog who, given his sheltered life on a Hollywood TV
set, thinks he’s got superpowers before being accidentally
shipped, kicking and screaming, into the real world. Given
the sweeping script changes,
major revisions, the impromptu ousting of original
director Chris Sanders and a
bare-bones 18-month production schedule, the success
of the animated feature came
as a surprise to many. But not
to Mark Walton, the man who
© DISNEY
The man behind the
hamster: Disney artist
Mark Walton and
Rhino, the character
he ended up voicing.
voiced Bolt’s plucky sidekick Rhino, a star-struck hamster who refuses to accept his idol’s
mortality … mostly because Walton’s own
tale is quite the Cinderella
story itself.
“The stuff that goes on
behind the scenes here would
make better movies than
what’s on-screen,” says the
40-year-old Walton, the here-
tofore unknown Disney artist who voiced the
excitable, sphere-encased rodent.“Thankfully,
this yarn’s had a happy ending.”
INTERVIEW
WITH THE VAMPIRE:
Twilight’s
Rob
Pattinson
By J. Rentilly
WHILE DOOMED beauty may be the cinematic stock in trade of handsome, dashing,
22-year-old actor Robert Pattinson, the
English actor who played Cedric Diggory in
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, he lives a
perfectly charmed life. “Lucky,” he calls it with
a modest laugh, preparing for the March 21
DVD release of Twilight, yet another blockbuster adaptation of a beloved literary property, in this case the vampire novels of
Stephenie Meyer. In the film, Pattinson plays—
what else?—another doomed beauty, the
angst-ridden blood-sucker Edward Cullen.
The Costco Connection: Tell me about
the differences between being a young, hand-
Love at first bite: Robert
Pattinson plays a love-struck
vampire in the movie
adaptation of Twilight.
some movie star and being a young, hand-
some vampire.
Robert Pattinson: I guess it all depends
on how much you like going around killing
people. [Laughs] I’m not sure that being good-
looking has anything to do with it, except vam-
pires have always been attractive, haven’t they?
CC: Your Twilight character, Edward, is different from standard cinematic vampires. I’m
wondering if you looked over the blood-suck-ing canon for inspiration.
PE TER SOREL
RP: You’re right, there’s very little about
Twilight that’s really vampire-ish. It’s about
vampires, I guess, but they’re not the same
vampires you’re used to seeing in other
movies. I found myself looking to real iconic
figures and characters, those timeless, attractive figures, for inspiration: James Dean,
Jack Nicholson, that old French film
Breathless. Edward’s an outsider, mysterious,
a bad boy, all the things girls find attractive.
I wanted to find the qualities that made
CONTINUED ON PAGE 33
