Following the first trailer for the Super Mario Bros Movie, prolific voice actress Tara Strong has criticised the casting of the titular plumber.
To pretty much everyone’s horror, last year it was revealed that Chris Pratt would play Mario in Illumination’s adaptation of the beloved series. In one part, fans were unhappy that an actor that has been associated with a controversial church (which he later noted was not a church he attends, but in fact a different one that also isn’t great). But fans were also unhappy that Mario himself, Charles Martinet, would not be reprising his role. Like fans of the actor, fellow voice actress Tara Strong also doesn’t seem to be happy.
Strong, known for a huge number of roles, notably including multiple stints as Harley Quinn, and Fairly Odd Parent’s Timmy Turner, shared a photo of herself and Martinet with a caption that reads, “It should be Charles,” obviously in references to the recent release of the first trailer of the film.
The voice actress followed this up with a tweet that is quite scathing towards Hollywood as a whole, writing, “Voice actors- I’m gonna put my heart & soul in this for at least 20 years, help sell billions in merch, make the studios millions of dollars & make generations around the world happy. Hollywood- We don’t care.”
Strong also later posted a tweet asking fans to share some nice stories they have with Martinet, saying that she happens “to know a certain earth angel who could use some love.” In turn, Martinet responded, saying, “Your love and kindness mean more than you could ever know, And genuinely touched my heart. My little eyes seem to be leaking today… with tender affection. Thank you…”
It isn’t uncommon for video game characters to receive celebrity actors to take over the role in film adaptations, like Ben Schwartz taking over Sonic the Hedgehog for the live action films. Aside from the obvious problems with Pratt, the issue is that voice actors often aren’t appreciated for the specific ways they handle acting as a craft.
Pratt himself isn’t a voice actor, even though he has done a few voice roles, whereas Schwartz has regularly performs voice roles for shows like the Ducktales reboot and The Rise of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Martinet is expected to have a couple of cameo’s in the Mario film, and they’ll undoubtedly be better than the half-arsed attempt at a Brooklyn accent that Pratt struggled to achieve, a far-cry from the “unlike anything you’ve heard” smoke he blew up his own you-know-what.
