Chris Pratt’s Mario voice was doomed before anyone had even heard it

There are certain seminal roles of stage and screen that all actors crave to play in their lifetimes. King Lear. John Proctor. Lady Macbeth. Willy Loman. Hannibal Lecter. And of course, Mario.

Charles Martinet, who plays the happy little plumber in the video games, was initially told in his audition to speak like “an Italian plumber from Brooklyn”. (Martinet claims his portrayal of Mario is inspired by Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, but that’s by the by.) Then there was Bob Hoskins, who played Mario in the notoriously bad 1993 film Super Mario Bros, and knew the qualities he was bringing to it from the get-go. “How do I prepare for the role?” he said, crankily flinging the question back at a reporter, who was visiting the famously chaotic set amid endless script rewrites and Dennis Hopper tantrums. “I’m the right shape. I’ve got a moustache.”

Compare all of the above to what Chris Pratt told Variety this year, when it was announced he would be voicing Mario in the upcoming animated film, The Super Mario Bros. “I worked really closely with the directors, and trying out a few things, and landed on something that I’m really proud of and can’t wait for people to see and hear,” Pratt said, adding that his voice would be “unlike anything you’ve heard in the Mario world before”.

The trailer for The Super Mario Bros film is now out. Apparently, “unlike anything you’ve heard in the Mario world before” sounds a lot like “a voice your dad might fall asleep to while watching almost any recent middling action thriller”. For Chris Pratt’s Mario sounds just like Chris Pratt, with the briefest hint of Paulie Walnuts in there for good measure. (Which, if you’re hungry, sounds delicious.)

Pratt’s Mario voice has been delighting seemingly everyone online for months, since before anyone had even heard it. For a start, there was the way Pratt was approaching the role – with an earnest intensity that suggested he might channel Daniel Day-Lewis and work as a plumber or jump on a turtle.

But even before that, it was the casting itself: an instant example of Hollywood’s cynicism and laziness, with every single animated film now throwing cash at a shopping list of starry names to get bums on seats. It’s why Patrick Stewart, who has probably performed every role in the opening paragraph, also once played a poo emoji. (It is worth noting that France and Brazil elected for two random guys who sound like Martinet to dub Mario in the new flick instead.)

Some have fretted that Pratt, who is not Italian, will perpetuate damaging Italian-American stereotypes by attempting a more distinctive accent. Anyone who is still worried about that, remember: this is a video game character who, when left alone by a player, says lines like: “Night nighty. Ahhh spaghetti, ahhh ravioli, ahhh mamma mia”.

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Pratt would have been rubbished if he’d gone down the “it’s-a-me” route. Instead, he’s dipped his toe into the “fuhgeddaboutit” pool, and he’s being rubbished for that too. But Pratt didn’t end up in this mess just because he’s the most widely disliked of all the famous Chrises (a consensus reached due to his apparent self-seriousness, love of guns and Bible-inspired dieting). It is also a consequence of Hollywood’s bad timing. For Pratt has become the new Ryan Reynolds circa 2017, and Taika Waititi circa 2021: once beloved for the few things they did and now wearyingly ever-present, doing too much, all the time. And Mario isn’t the end of it. Guess who will be the next voice of Garfield in 2024?