The Middle East Film & Comic Con (MEFCC) revealed a special visitor for this year’s event, which will take place in March.
The voice of Super Mario, Charles Martinet, will be in the MEFCC 2022 “Meet The Stars” Zone, which is sponsored by Speedy Comics. He’ll be present for the whole three-day conference, which runs from March 4th to March 6th, 2022.
CELEB ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨 ‘Hello! It's-a me, Mario!’ 🍄 🐢
Charles Martinet @charlesmartinet, the nostalgic voice behind our beloved Super Mario Bros and the iconic voice of Paarthurnax – Dragon leader of the Greybeards in the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is coming to MEFCC 2022! pic.twitter.com/ng8h6tuXU0
— ME Film & Comic Con™ (@MEFCC) January 14, 2022
About Charles Martinet
Charles Andre Martinet, a well-known Mario voice actor, was born on September 17, 1955 in San Jose, California, United States of America. Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Baby Wario, Metal Mario, the male bosses in Super Mario Advance, and many more male characters in the Mario series are all voiced by him. He also voices Goombas, Bob-ombs, Monty Moles, Whomps, and Thwomps from the Koopa Troop, all of whom employ pitch-shifted copies of Mario’s voice samples from Super Mario 64.
Martinet is credited with almost 150 works according to the Internet Movie Database. Martinet is proficient in French, English, and Spanish, but not much Italian, strangely. His first job at Nintendo was voicing the commentators, boxers, and referee in Super Punch-Out!! for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Becoming Mario
Martinet was not asked to audition for the part of Mario at first. He showed up late for the auditions and was instructed to do an Italian accent. His recordings made such an impact on Nintendo that they were the only ones provided to them. Martinet, a former Shakespearean actor, has indicated that Mario’s voice is based on his performance as Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew.
Martinet’s first formal voice role as Mario was on the Super Mario Bros. pinball machine in 1992, however he was uncredited.
The second time he played Mario, and the first time he played a variety of other characters, was in 1994 for Mario in Real Time, in which he wore motion sensors on his face that translated his facial emotions to a computer-generated Mario head on a screen. Through a security camera, Martinet observed individuals passing past the screen and conversed with them as Mario. When Nintendo attends trade exhibitions, this became pretty common.
Mario in Real Time was reimagined in 1995’s Mario’s Game Gallery (later renamed Mario’s FUNdamentals), which was the first video game to feature Charles Martinet as Mario.
