In the decisive moments of the pilot for NBC’s new comedy “About a Boy,” irresponsible 30-something Will stands off-stage at a talent show, cringing while his new neighbor Marcus gets booed by unsupportive classmates. He sees no other option — Will slides onstage with a keyboard, rocking out to Marcus’ a cappella version of “What Makes You Beautiful” to salvage the 11 year-old’s reputation in front of his middle school peers.
As the sitcom enters its fourth week, David Walton ’01 is enjoying his latest slide onto the mainstream television stage, playing the carefree protagonist who, despite his exterior narcissism, cultivates a budding friendship with his school-aged neighbor.
“I like playing people that kind of show one thing to the world but underneath it all are actually quite the opposite,” Walton said. “This is different than any other show I’ve been on. I think it has the broadest appeal, and people are really responding to it in a fun way.”
NBC President Robert Greenblatt took notice of Walton after his last series “Bent,” which was “short-lived but critically acclaimed,” Walton said. Greenblatt subsequently offered Walton the role of Will without an audition. But “About a Boy,” unlike “Bent,” has balanced positive critical response with high ratings, averaging 8.35 million viewers for the second episode.
This success comes almost 13 years after Walton, having just graduated with a degree in physiological psychology, thought, “Screw it” and moved to New York to pursue a career in acting, he said.
Walton said Shakespeare launched his acting career — specifically, his role in “The Taming of the Shrew” in ninth grade while attending boarding school in New Hampshire.
“I basically did every play I could in high school. I loved it from the first time I ever did it,” he said.
A one-year stint on the crew team at Brown diverted Walton’s attention from acting for a brief time — just long enough to bring him running back sophomore year. A friend of his — John Krasinski ’01 — convinced him to join the Out of Bounds sketch comedy group that year. Walton performed with the group for the next three years.
While taking TAPS 0230: “Acting” under Professor of Theater Arts and Performance Studies Lowry Marshall, Walton said, he “sort of got the (acting) bug at Brown.” After taking advantage of the open curriculum by enrolling in 12 classes in 12 different departments, he gravitated toward his chosen concentration of physiological psychology. Despite his academic interests, “it really was about acting in Out of Bounds and trying to get better as an actor constantly, getting parts in school productions and Production Workshop stuff,” he said.
Walton noted the supportive environment and enormous talent of the student body during his undergraduate years. “If you’re motivated to do something, every part of the school can be mobilized to help make it happen,” he said.
The last two years sparked reflection on what to do after college — for Walton, the conversation was as simple as “what do you love the most?”
“By the end of my junior year I’d gotten enough feedback and enough support from faculty that said, ‘You should give this a shot,’” Walton said.
But he added, “they warn you that if you can imagine doing anything else with your life, do it, because trying to be an actor is brutally challenging.”
For Walton, the journey has been “a real roller coaster ride.”
“Everyone thinks you get this one break, which isn’t true. You get an increasing series of breaks that step you up the ladder,” he said. He surmounted the first rung a year and a half into his venture in the Big Apple. An agent signed Walton, setting him up for a continuing series of auditions until a show at Fox, called “Cracking Up” with Jason Schwartzman, stuck — briefly. “There have been a lot of TV shows that haven’t gone the distance,” he said. “This is my seventh.”
Along with “About a Boy,” Walton will appear in two feature films this year — “Break Point,” a tennis comedy, and “Think Like a Man Too,” starring Kevin Hart. The switch between film and television is palpable for him. With a television series, “you’re cranking out an episode every week. You’re on a train that is moving fast,” he said. “There’s an intensity and adrenaline to that, which I like.”
Movies include detailed cinematography that slows down the process, which Walton said makes him “a little impatient.” But he added that he still appreciates the lasting impact of film. “They’re these little two-hour stories that you can pick up, throw in there and then you’re done,” he said.
The college actor in him still yearns for the stage sometimes. “I think being part of an electrifying theater show doesn’t get any better as far as pure joy and excitement,” he said.
The transition from rowdy Out of Bounds shows to the mandated quiet on the set of television comedies still poses problems for Walton. “There’s something very exciting when people are laughing,” he said of live comedy. “Your performance gets electrified by it, and you need to figure out a way to electrify your performance when there isn’t that laughter,” as on a studio set, Walton said.
To replace the instant feedback of a live audience, Walton watches his performance each week. “I find it helpful to see what (the producers) are choosing because I always try to — in each take and each scene — give them a lot of different options,” he said.
For Walton, there are more important viewers, though. “All I really care about is whether my family and friends like it,” he said.
This family now includes his wife, Majandra — a fellow actor — and his children, Cecilia and Louis. Balancing career with family presents its own challenges — Walton said he will wait “as long as possible” before introducing them to his show and acting career. “I come from a very … typical Boston suburb — dad was a businessman, mom raised me and my six siblings — and no one got into the entertainment business. So I will be winging it as far as how to raise a normal kid, but I think the best policy for now is to have them avoid (the entertainment business) at all costs until it’s unavoidable,” he said.
Will provides some support on that front. Playing a juvenile father figure all week “is fun,” he said. “It’s like I can do all the things that I’m not allowed to do with my own children.” An episode where Will fills a young child in on “the birds and the bees” has reinforced what not to do when the time comes with his own children, Walton said.
For now, Walton’s most pressing concern is the fact that millions of Americans will hear him sing again in a few weeks. Before his pivotal One Direction cover in the pilot, the producers had never heard him sing, but they have now asked him to do so again for a popular Christmas jingle that Will wrote.
Because his character is a songwriter rather than a musician, “the sights have been set pretty low on this one.”
“The good thing is, I’ve always been an in-the-shower singer,” Walton said.
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