How was animator Mark Walton cast as the English language voice of Rhino?
John Lasseter: Mark Walton is a Disney story artist. When we create a film, often we’re creating the story and the characters even before we know who is going to do the voice. Once we cast an actor like John Travolta doing the voice, and we start working with him, he really adds a tremendous amount and makes the character that much better. Actors really do have a lot to do with how good these characters are. But early on, we’ll be doing the story reel and using scratch voices. These scratch voices are done by people at the studio. What’s interesting is that animators are actors with pencils or with a keyboard and many of them are very good actors. Chris and Byron were good friends with Mark Walton, who is exactly like Rhino. He is the nerdiest geek on the planet, and he goes to San Diego Comic-Con every year. He loves comic books, he’s just a classic nerd. So they were using him to do this voice, and it was hilarious. But you always say that’s a scratch voice and then you start looking
