New Mario actor Chris Pratt has spoken out after it was announced that he would be leading the cast of the animated Super Mario Bros. movie. On Thursday, Illumination announced the full cast of the movie with the reveal that Pratt would be voicing Super Mario himself. Not long after the news was broken, Pratt took to Instagram to post a video addressing the casting. As it makes him think back to the days when he’d steal wishing well quarters to play the original arcade game as a kid, it seems to blow Pratt’s mind that he’s now the voice of Mario.
“So when I was a kid I lived in Lake Stevens, Washington. And there is this coin-operated laundromat near my house, and it had Super Mario Bros., the original arcade game. Oh, I loved that game. I never had a quarter, it felt like. I’d either steal them from the wishing well… that’s wild. It just dawned on me right now. The quarter I stole out of the wishing well to play Super Mario Bros. has come true, that I get to be the voice of Mario. But, I clearly stole someone else’s wish, so, just waiting for that row of karma dominoes to come crashing down on me.”
While Pratt does go on to belt out Mario’s famous slogan, he did not reveal the actual voice he’s using for Super Mario. The actor says fans will have to wait for now as he’s still working on perfecting it, but Pratt is nevertheless excited. While some fans wanted to see Danny DeVito playing Mario instead, the response from fans to the Super Mario Bros. movie cast has really been pretty positive. And it’s a dream role for Chris Pratt.
“As it is right now, it’s-a me, Mario. That’s not the voice. You’ll have to wait the hear the voice, but we’ve been working hard at it, and I’m really excited to announce that I am going to be the voice of that video game that I dreamed about playing as a kid. Dreams come true.”
As previously announced, the animated Super Mario Bros. movie also stars Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya-Taylor Joy as Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, and Sebastian Maniscalco as Foreman Spike. Illumination’s Chris Meledandri and Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto are producing. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic direct using a script by Matthew Fogel.
“Mario and Luigi are two of the most beloved heroes in all of popular culture, and we are honored to have the unique opportunity to work so closely with Shigeru Miyamoto and the widely imaginative team at Nintendo to bring these characters to life in an animated movie, unlike any film Illumination has made to date,” Meledandri said of the project.
The animated Super Mario Bros. movie will be released in theaters on Dec. 21, 2022. Perhaps if the movie turns out to be a bigger hit than the live-action movie from 1993, then that long-awaited movie based on The Legend of Zelda might finally happen. In any case, the casting alone has a lot of people interested.