Charles Martinet is the voice actor of Nintendo’s mascot, Mario, since 1990. After having doubled and played Mario for more than 30 years, Martinet explains in an interview that he often dreams in 2D instead of the famous Nintendo hero , to fly in the air and swim in the seas, like an Italian plumber “who can jump very high and shoot fireballs with his hands”.
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For many Nintendo fans, Charles Martinet doesn’t just represent Mario’s simple voice actor, but sometimes rather Mario himself. This weekend, the voice actor, who has brought his character to life for almost 30 years, will have given a particularly complete interview to the Retro Gamer team, from Games Radar+.
In this long interview, Martinet indicated that he often dreamed of being Mario. Some of his dreams are also set in 2D, just like in Nintendo’s early hero adventures.
Charles Martinet, a fascinating interview with a true enthusiast
In this interview, Martinet discusses a wide range of topics, from how he landed his job for the very first time at Nintendo to the storytelling of the video game documentary High Score: The Golden Age of Gaming on Netflix, which we highly recommend. One of the questions related, for example, to how Martinet was preparing for a voice recording session, to which he will have answered that it was not so easy to put yourself in the shoes of the character.
He evokes especially at the beginning of the interview the fact that this Nintendo universe sometimes sticks to his skin. « These characters, for me, are still there. What I mean is I dream like Mario, flying over these lakes or over the ocean, in the moonlight, this is Galaxy-esque. And sometimes I even dream in 2D “, He indicated to our colleagues from Retro Gamer.
If Mario is the role for which Martinet is best known, the voice actor also brought to life several other Nintendo characters over the years including Luigi, Wario and Waluigi. He also dubbed Paarthurnax, in Skyrim, or even lent his voice to Jet Set Radio Future and Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time.
Deeply attached to his character, many fans will have been shocked to learn that he will not play the role of Mario in the upcoming Nintendo and Universal animated film dedicated to the famous plumber. Instead, the role of Mario went to Chris Pratt, and that of Luigi, to Charlie Day.
The interview, which we highly recommend, is available in English at this address.
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