User blog:Cheesedude/Wizard World Comic Con Philadelphia - Charles Martinet

I attended Wizard World Comic Con Philadelphia 2015. Mario's voice actor Charles Martinet was there. He signed autographs for hours on end Friday through Sunday and was also involved in two panels, one on Friday and one on Saturday.

As a lifelong fan of the Mario franchise, I was quite excited. In fact, going into the event, getting Martinet's autograph was the only thing I knew was on my agenda 100%, no matter what, even if the world ended. My favorite Mario game to date is actually Paper Mario (and yes, there was voice acting in that game), so I brought along my copy to have him sign. Rather than simply sign it, he topped of his signature with several Mario quotes and finally with a smiley face - complete with mustache, of course. He signed the autographs at Critical Hit's booth.

On Friday, Martinet was part of a panel with fellow video game voice actor Matthew Mercer. The two took fan questions and talked of their experiences in the industry. Though I was not familiar with Mercer's work going on, I'm more interested in playing some of the games he was in now. But this is about Martinet, who also had a solo panel the next day (Mercer had a solo panel of his own that I was unable to attend).

Naturally, one of the voice questions asked was how he got cast Mario. He went into the story of how he went into voice acting to being with - by accident. He had been a stage actor and also in several commercials. He had just finished filming a commercial that referenced American Gothic and was approached by the director, who asked if he did voiceover work. Martinet replied "of course!" He was handed a script and told to read it - it was a commercial for a cleaning product. He read it and was given more money.

Sometime later, another actor friend of his told him about an audition in Las Vegas for a video game character. His friend had been invited to audition and Martinet had not. He was very, very close to not going. Finally, he arrived to the audition just before the director was leaving - in fact, the camera was being wheeled out the room. He asked if he could still audition and the director begrudgingly agreed. He was told "this is for a video game, you'll be talking to kids. You're an Italian plumber from Brooklyn. Make up a voice and start talking. When you run out of things to say, your audition is over." In just a few seconds, Martinet invented the Mario voice. Rather than go with a generic Brooklyn-ish accent, he decided to do a different voice, logicing that you wouldn't want a character who would be talking to kids sounding so tough. And thus the voice of Mario was born as he launched into a five-minute long, ab-libbed spiel about pizza, plumbing and pasta.

He was given the job the next day and has been voicing Mario ever since!

Other than Mario, Martinet also voices other Mario characters - among them, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi. All are variations on the same voice, but all are distinct. He said that though Mario is his favorite character to voice, he is more like Luigi himself. Another question asked was what character he'd like to see added to Smash Bros. He responded with Waluigi and suggested he could attack by complaining.

One fan came up and told the story of his eight-year old daughter, who never liked video games until her father got her to try Super Mario 64. Now, father and daughter bond over video games - thanks to that famous voice! Thanks to that fun voice! Thanks to Mario!