Voice and silver screen actor Patrick Warburton joined California Lutheran University for a Q&A on his career and his thoughts on being a young actor.

Mark Flanagan, an experienced actor-turned-teacher conducted the Q&A with Warburton. He has had many guests visits in which they sit down and discuss many of the things that make acting such a beautiful art.

Flanagan said he deeply enjoys his work, include working with friends and colleagues to find out how to be a better actor. He has taught hundreds of students both at Cal Lutheran and at his acting studio. Alas, it is not about him or even actors like Warburton. It is instead about the young actors.

“It s about helping the next generation of actor to understand what they’re trying to do a little better,” Flanagan said.

It is not every day Cal Lutheran gets reminded of our “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” but when it does, it is a blessing to have such an amicable actor on our stage for a night.

Warburton has been practicing his craft since he was about 22, and according to him, it was not the most glamorous of starting points.

On a film named “Dragonard” Warburton retells some of his first memories on an actual movie set with actors and actresses. At age 22, this was a riveting experience as he was able to see what his hard work would bring him.

From then he landed the part of Jerry’s mechanic, David Puddy, on Seinfeld. This being his next role of his rather fresh career, it put him on the map as a very nice and dependable character.

This happens to be one of the worst things that could happen to a fledgling actor. It is called “type-casting” and this is can pigeonhole an actor or actress into a specific role for the rest of their career.

It is something Warburton was able to avoid, as he landed his next and possibly his most famous among our generation: Kronk, the sidekick of the villain Yzma in “The Emperors New Groove.”

This role allowed him to explore his abilities as a voice actor, landing him his next voice acting job as Buzz Lightyear in the animated TV series “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.”

According to Warburton, voice acting requires less of the person to adhere to strict rules and more on the flexibility of the voice and what it can do.

“You can just goof around, there’s really no right or wrong,” Warburton said.

As an actor, Warburton said one of the biggest challenges as an actor is the auditions. It takes an absurd amount of courage to go before a group of people and bring out a level of emotional expression that would make many quake in their boots.

As an experienced actor with a “jack-of-all-trades” type of career, it was one of Warburton’s ideas to speak directly to the Cal Lutheran actors.

“I’ve seen this guy for years on my favorite movies, ‘[The] Emperors New Groove,’ ‘Men In Black 2,’ its just too cool seeing him in real life,” junior Michael Bernal said.

It is really uncommon to have the chance to bounce questions off a person who had seen a good majority of what Hollywood has to offer, considering Cal Lutheran’s proximity to “Tinseltown.”

Connor McKinney
Staff Writer
Published April 15th, 2015