The acting bug bites some people early. When Old Globe founding director Craig Noel was in kindergarten, he played a troll under a bridge. He grew up acting, eventually fell in love with directing and guided the Old Globe for more than five decades.
La Jolla High School senior Luke Marinkovich was also infected in kindergarten, when he was cast as a Toy Soldier in his school’s production of “Pinocchio.” Of his ten minutes of fame, he spent nine in Geppetto’s toy box. On opening night, he discovered that he could observe the audience through a small hole. The bug was in the experience.
“I wanted to be Geppetto. I wanted to have the magic to transform people,” he wrote in a prize-winning scholarship essay.
Marinkovich, who was born into a family of jocks, was an actor from that day forward. It was like, where did this kid come from, but the family was tolerant and he now numbers them among his biggest fans. He gained experience in productions of California Young Actors Conservatory and Christian Youth Theatre and at school. His first professional job was as the invalid Colin in La Jolla Stage Company’s “The Secret Garden,” directed by Tim Heitman. At the time, the Village News critic remarked on Marinkovich’s naturalness, poise and beautiful voice. He sings in the tenor range.
Now 18, Marinkovich recently scored a young actor’s triple crown. He received a San Diego Critics Circle Craig Noel Award for his portrayal of Jimmy, a wild-haired, adorably insecure teenage nerd in Moxie Theatre’s award-winning “Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen.” He received the inaugural Patte Award for promising young theater maker, and he was accepted at the college of his dreams, New York University (NYU), where he aspires to a BFA in musical theater.
His Critics Circle Award-winning portrayal of the nerdy Jimmy was not type casting. In person Marinkovich is poised, earnest and utterly engaging as he talks excitedly about his future and his San Diego mentors and teachers. He won’t be alone in New York. Though he plans on living in student housing for the first year at least, some of his mentors ” among them Nick and Amy Cordileone and Eric Anderson ” have already moved to Manhattan’s Union Square area, where he will live.
Upon learning of Marinkovich’s awards, the kids at school said, “So, you’re going to Hollywood, huh?” and Marinkovich replied, “No. I’m going to New York.” His goal is to become a working New York actor who can sing and who moves well.
Asked if he is frightened, he said, “I kinda got scared the other day, but because of NYU’s summer program [which he attended last year] I know the faculty and I know the way classes are set up. Just going to New York and getting used to it is the ride.”