Nintendo announces it’s got a new Mario
Sorry, Chris Pratt: Voice actor Kevin Afghani has been tapped to play Mario and Luigi in this month's Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Aux News Mario
A couple of months ago, Nintendo announced a major change to its flagship Mario titles: Charles Martinet, the voice of intrepid plumbers Mario and Luigi for the last 27 years, was standing down from his post, switching to a role as a general “Nintendo Ambassador.” Given that Martinet is the voice of Nintendo’s biggest hero across dozens of titles—give or take the franchise’s recent big Hollywood excursion, where he still appeared in a small role as Mario’s dad—he left some pretty massive turtle-smashing boots to fill.
Now, Nintendo has announced the next voice actor to take on the parts, revealing today that Los Angeles voice actor Kevin Afghani has been tapped to play the Mario Bros. in this month’s new Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Interestingly, Nintendo has decided to go with a relative newcomer to the world of voice acting for these key roles, rather than a more established performer; Afghani has only a handful of credits to his name, including small appearances in Genshin Impact, and a few online parody shows, like the Dragon Ball Z-based Dragon Ball R&R. (Of course, Chris Pratt wasn’t exactly a veteran voice actor when he scored the role himself, so…)
Afghani spoke briefly about his casting on social media today, writing that he’s “Incredibly proud to have voiced Mario and Luigi in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Thanks to Nintendo for inviting me into the Flower Kingdom!” Per Variety, Nintendo has yet to confirm whether Afghani’s role in the franchise will extend beyond this single entry, which arrives on October 20, and which returns the Mario series to its more traditional sidescrolling roots. In contrast to the movie, the Mario games tend to go pretty light on dialogue; for much of Martinet’s tenure on the character, he was restricted to a handful of lines, and a series of “Wahoo!”s, “Yippee!”s and “It’s a me!”s per game.
16 Comments
(Of course, Chris Pratt wasn’t exactly a veteran voice actor when he scored the role himself, so…)He’d already voiced the lead in both The LEGO Movie and its sequel when he was announced as Mario, and I imagine that by that point he’d already finished recording his VO for Onward. I don’t know that this makes him a “veteran” per se, but comparing Kevin Afghani’s casting to Pratt’s this way is odd.
A quick look at his filmography also shows that, even before the Lego movies, he had some experience voicing characters in TV shows, movies and video games. I don’t know if that makes him a veteran either but he wasn’t a rookie. He did voice acting prior to being a “name” too.
What, you expect the AV Club to pass up a chance to throw a little shade Pratt’s way?
Onward was out for about a year by the time Pratt was announced as Mario in 2021.Incidentally, he’s also voicing Garfield in an upcoming movie. If I had a nickel for every well-known, pasta-loving character Pratt is voicing, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happening twice, right?
I haven’t really played any Mario games in, like… well, quite a long, long time. How much dialogue does Mario actually have in these games? I always got the impression it was mostly grunts and exclamations. Which isn’t to downplay Martinet’s work, of course, I just don’t quite get why the audience cares all that much, aside from the usual parasocial reasons.
I also kind of agree that I don’t *quite* see what the big deal is. Again, not to downplay the guy who’s being replaced, but Mario games are never really dialogue driven. He’s probably said a small handful of complete sentences in his entire career.
Most of the games don’t have a lot but Mario After Dark gets pretty dialogue heavy, though not at the expense of a lot of the grunts and exclamations.
He’s also voiced Mario and Luigi in various conventions over the years, through mocap. One of my favorite moments was Mario dissing Sony by calling it fantastic, then his nose suddenly grows.
Was Bob Hoskins unavailable?
I read stupid comments on the internet all day, this one is the stupidest of all time.
Look, is he available or not?
Thank you!
He’s been pretty permanently unavailable for the past nine years, yeah.
Kids will want to hear the original Super Mario
I’ll take Captain Lou’s slightly gruff take over the “Wahey, it’sa me” horseshit any day.
It’s a fucking video game about plumbers stomping on things called “Goombas” in a Mushroom Kingdom, but the “Wahey, it’sa me” sound bites are where you start drawing the horseshit line?