US – Everyone knows Mario the famous character in the longtime video game produced by Nintendo. Now the talent behind the voice is stepping down.
Mario didn’t speak at first in his original Mario brothers games, there was no voice acting, even in Super Mario, 1,2,3 Mario did not have a voice. It wasn’t until the 90s when Charles Martinet was cast in the voice of Mario and actually several other characters including Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Toadsworth, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, in video games including Super Mario series including Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Super Mario 3D World, Luigi’s Mansion Series, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart series starting from Mario Kart 64, Super Smash Bros series, Mario & Luigi: RPG series, Yoshi’s Island series. He also voiced the Announcer, Referee, Boxers in Super Punch Out (1994).
In a statement from Nintendo, “Charles Martinet has been the original voice of Mario in Nintendo games for a long time, as far back as Super Mario 64. Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador. With this transition, he will be stepping back from recording character voices for our games, but he’ll continue to travel the world sharing the joy of Mario and interacting with you all! It has been an honor working with Charles to help bring Mario to life for so many years and we want to thank and celebrate him. Please keep an eye out for a special video message from Shigeru Miyamoto and Charles himself, which we will post at a future date.”
