Please Rewind Talent Wall

Patrick Warburton

Patrick Warburton has built a wide-ranging screen career across live-action comedy, animation and voice performance. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, on November 14, 1964, he studied marine biology at Orange Coast College before leaving to pursue modelling and acting at 19. This shift led to a body of work that moves comfortably between sitcoms, genre films, and animated worlds. For many viewers, Warburton became a familiar presence in the 1990s through Seinfeld, where he played David Puddy, Elaine Benes’s unflappable, on-again, off-again boyfriend. That role made particularly good use of his ability to play certainty so straight that it becomes comic. He later took the title role in Fox’s The Tick and appeared in series including Dave’s World, Less than Perfect, 8 Simple Rules, Rules of Engagement and Crowded. He also played Lemony Snicket in Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and Rick Stoner in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Warburton appears on the Please Rewind Talent Wall through Scream 3, the 2000 sequel in which he plays Steven Stone. As a bodyguard working amid the film’s Hollywood production-within-a-production, Stone fits neatly into Scream’s collision of movie-business satire and slasher suspense. Warburton gives the part the kind of firm, self-assured bearing that makes the surrounding danger—and the character’s response to it—part of the joke. His voice work is just as substantial. Warburton voiced Kronk in The Emperor’s New Groove and returned for Kronk’s New Groove and The Emperor’s New School. His other animated roles include Joe Swanson in Family Guy, Brock Samson in The Venture Bros., Steve Barkin in Kim Possible, Rip Riley in Archer and Sheriff Bronson Stone in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. He has also contributed to animated films including Chicken Little, Open Season, Bee Movie and Mr. Peabody & Sherman. Whether he is playing a sitcom regular, a horror-film bodyguard or an animated adventurer, Warburton’s performances tend to find comedy in absolute composure. That consistency has allowed him to remain recognisable across very different kinds of movies and television.