WGE MAG: 07
“I had played Gremio, the old man in The Taming of the Shrew, whose daughter marries Petruchio, who was an Italian G.I. coming to Italy to find a wife and Gremio was the town mayor in 1947 Italy.
“It was that voice, a much more friendly Italian accent, which provided the basis for the Brooklyn plumber in that audition.
“I didn’t know anything about video games. I had played Pong and I had played Space Invaders. I don’t know why but I was having a great time, just sitting there being silly and I talked for 30 to 40 minutes, because he said until I ran out of things to say, I thought I might as well just keep going until he says stop.
“Sure enough he shouts ‘Stop, cut, we’ve run out of video tape. Thank you very much, we’ll be in touch.’ ‘We’ll be in touch’, the ultimate kiss of death for an actor, it usually translates to ‘There’s the door, I hope to goodness we never see you again.”
“I have attended a lot of shows and whenever Mr Miyamoto walked by, and I’m playing Mario, I would see him and his entourage and they would be going to this show and I would say (in Mario voice) ‘Papa, hello.’”
“I went off to watch the sunset at the beach but as soon as I walked out of the door, the producer gets on the phone, calls Nintendo and says ‘I’ve found our Mario’. He only sent my tape up there, I guess all the powers that be heard the tape and that they said ‘That’s our Mario.’ That was 21 magnificent years ago.”
The beginnings of a beautiful creative partnership were born from that audition. Mario’s voice started life as MIRT, Mario in Real Time, at Trade Shows but as technology progressed it soon became clear that Martinet’s Mario voice could be put to use on even bigger projects.
“It was supposed to be a one-off but people really enjoyed it, the interactions were terrific. Mario was a floating head and we would put the children on the TV so they could see themselves and then we would put Mario’s head on their head and we would just sit there talking, being playful.
“In 1996 I got a phone call, ‘Mr Miyamoto would like you to play Mario in a game, the Mario 64 game, and for you to be the voice of Mario.’ It was such a profound joy and honour to go in and do this session, seeing all these animations and these things which came to life right there.
“I have attended a lot of shows and whenever Mr Miyamoto walked by, and I’m playing Mario, I would see him and his entourage and they would be going to this show and I would say (in Mario voice) ‘Papa, hello.’”
In a future edition of WGE:MAG, Martinet extends on his work with Nintendo, his excitement about the forthcoming Wii U, his work on Skyrim and much more.
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