“I love this character. He's a fabulous, fun character full of joy and emotion and happiness—all the things that I aspire to be.”









Speaking with Charles Martinet, you are immediately welcomed by his happiness, enthusiasm, and warmth, and it is clear that he imbues Mario with a lot of his own heart.





Martinet has been voicing Mario across multiple platforms, as well as Luigi, Wario, Waluigi and other characters, since 1990. Pittsburgh fans will have the opportunity to meet Martinet when he is appearing at Wizard World November 4-6 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.







While the actor has an extensive resume spanning film, television, radio, video games, commercial work and more, both on-screen and voice-over, it is through the Nintendo icon that he has touched millions of people's lives.







“I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I get to do love that I absolutely love to do, voicing Mario, Wario, Luigi, Waluigi and all these characters, and then I get to be appreciated at conventions and meet fans and celebrate all the great games we all love.”







Acting was not initially in Martinet's plans, and he was studying international law in college.







“I got into acting absolutely by mistake. I always knew that I loved making people laugh, but I way-way too shy, way too timid to ever think that I could stand in front of anybody and deliver a speech or talk or do anything. At the same time of being the class clown, I was also the hidden guy in the very back of any social setting.”







“I was at UC Berkeley and I couldn't get the professor that I wanted for the last round of classes for my thesis, so I thought, 'I'll just wait then for next year.' A friend of mine said, 'Don't just wait around, come and take an acting class from me.' I said, 'Les, there is absolutely no way I could ever stand in front of people and talk.' 'It doesn't matter. In the cafeteria, they're training chefs. We can have lunch in the daytime, and then you can come to class, and see what you learn, and if you want to participate.' That seduced me into going.







“I went to class, and our first monologue was this 'Spoon River Anthology' monologue, and the characters recount the terrible tales of woe of how they died. Everybody else goes, and I'm thinking I'll just say, 'No thanks, I won't do it.' Then Les goes, 'Charles, you're up' because I was the last guy hiding in the back.







“I get up and I swear, I was shaking like a leaf. My right leg is shaking so much that I felt that my heel was bouncing up and down on the floor, so I put all my weight on it, then my left one started shaking, I spread my legs apart a bit and put my weight evenly on both, and they're both shaking.”







“I finished that monologue convinced that I was going to die. People applauded, which amazed me because I thought they'd run away screaming. The critique was, 'You're the only person who wasn't nervous. Why?'”







Inspired by that moment, Martinet decided to delve deeper into acting and found himself auditioning for Oberon in “A Midsummer Night's Dream” at the school. Despite feeling he nailed the audition, he did not secure that, or any, role in the show.







“That failure was a great learner for me because it ignited the passion for acting. 'If I wasn't good enough then, I'm going to get better.' I kept working on it, I did speech tournaments, state tournaments, and national tournaments. One day a little notice went up that the Berkeley Repertory Theater was hiring for an apprenticeship position that summer. I went in against the very people who were in the play, and I auditioned with Oberon's monologue that I didn't get the part with, and I got that apprenticeship.”







“I got to go to Drama Studio in London, came back to join Berkeley Rep, started the San Jose Repertory Theatre, and from there moved from the theatre into corporate videos and voice over work. On day while I was doing a commercial for Orchard Supply Hardware, doing the American Gothic painting, it was no motion, just looking deadpan. Afterward, the director said, 'Hey, do you do voice over?' And I said, 'Sure,' not really knowing what he meant. He hands me a script, and I read it, and he handed me more money. I'm a voice over actor!”







In 1989, he received the phone call that would lead to his iconic role.









“One day, I was doing what actors often do, sitting on the beach reading a book and enjoying the day, and a friend of mine called up and said, 'Hey, you've got to do this audition. It's for a show in Las Vegas.' I said, 'There is no way I would ever crash an audition. I'm a professional actor. I can't imagine anything worse than being told, 'No, you can't audition' when you knock on the door.' I don't know why, but I said, 'Where do I go?'





“He tells me the address, and somehow I got myself off that beach and to the location as the producer is walking out the door. I said, 'Hey, can I read for this part?' Literally, there was that moment of him looking at his watch, looking at me, and looking at his watch before, 'Agh, oh gosh, alright, alright, come on in. You have an Italian plumber from Brooklyn. A video game character called Mario. We've got this real-time animation that they're trying to develop where you're going to have these things glued to your face, and the way you talk is supposed to make the cartoon character talk. We have no idea whether this is going to work or not, but I'm not going to pay you a lot of money to just sit there and drink coffee if this doesn't work, so you're going to have to talk to people all day. Make up a voice, make up a game, whatever you want. Start talking, and whenever you run out of things to say, that's your audition.'







“I thought, Italian plumber from Brooklyn (gruffly) 'Hey, yo, get outta my face, I'm workin' here!' 'No, I don't want to do that, what if there are kids? I want to do something nice.' My rule of comedy is always make things good and happy and fun, at no one's expense but the character. I played Gremio in “Taming of the Shrew,” I can do that and make him younger.







“I knew absolutely nothing about video games except Ms. Pac-Man and Asteroids, and things like that because I hadn't played in so many years. I thought, 'I'll make something up about food, I like food.' All of a sudden, I hear, 'Action!' and I turn to the camera, 'Hello, I'm Mario. Okey-dokey, let's make a pizza pie together. You get a sausage, I can get spaghetti. We put spaghetti and sausage in the pizza. Then, I'll chase you with the pizza, and if I catch you with the pizza, you gotta eat the pizza, and then you gotta chase me with the pizza' and I don't know what I was saying, but I'm thinking, 'For sure, he's going to say, “Stop,”' but he didn't say, 'Stop.' Then I said, 'Okay, let's make a lasagna,' and I keep going on and on with chasing each other with lasagna pans and meatballs, running around and playing. I kept going for about 30 minutes when I hear, 'Stop talking, there's no more tape. Thanks a lot, we'll be in touch.'







“I assumed that was the kiss of death, so I went back to the beach to watch the sunset. He gets on the phone and called Nintendo, 'I found our Mario, I got him.' He only sent my tape up there. That was 26 fantastic years ago. You never know exactly what you're going to do in life, but my mission was to have fun, and I certainly won the lottery on that one.”







After performing the Mario In Real Time set-up for years, he played Mario in “Super Mario 64,” and have been voicing the plumber in all of the games since. He credits Mario's consistency for his enduring success.







“You put the first Mario game, and you play the most recent, or you make your own Mario level, and you'll have that feeling you're friends because that character has a through-line and integrity through every single game that's ever been done.







“That was the great thing about 'Super Mario Maker,' is you look at it and you can have all these dimensions and all of these levels playing together, and they all somehow fit. That's a great piece of the genius of that game. Even if you're putting Petey Piranha on top of a Goomba's head, you still get that level of the fun and playfulness of Nintendo.”







That playfulness is a part of Nintendo behind the scenes as well as in the company's games and seeing the creativity and passion from Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, as well as the Treehouse team and other Nintendo staff, inspires him to deliver work to match the quality of theirs.







“The greatest part about the creative process is when you can work together as a team seamlessly. There's no ego at all. It's just, 'Let's have some fun because the more fun that we have, the better the game is going to be.'







“It makes it so much fun when everybody's aim is the same thing, to make a great game. That's one of the things I really love about Nintendo. The passion for video games that's inside every single person who works at that company is so fantastic.”







“My part of the video game process is so small. I go in for a few hours and I put some voice to some fantastic imagery. My job is to be as true to the characters as I can possibly be and have those characters come from a sense of realness in me. The absolute joy and love and optimism of Mario, the trepidation of Luigi, the anger of Wario and the self-pity of Waluigi—all of those emotions have to be true, but my little part is so small, and it takes so many years to put a video game together, and have that integrity that it all flows together.”







“I'm sometimes awestruck by how much recognition I get for how little that I actually do in that whole process. It's like the icing you put on top of a cake. Somebody grew that wheat that made that flour and had those chickens that laid those eggs, and then put them all together in recipes, and then I come in and put a little frosting on top, and “Oh, that's the most beautiful cake! You're an amazing cake maker!”







Martinet's love for the games is evident, as he finds it hard to pick a favorite Mario title.







“My problem is every time I play a game for the first time, it's the best game ever. 'Okay, Mario Kart 8 is the best game that's ever been made!' I felt that way about 'Galaxy,' it still gives me goosebumps playing it. 'New Super Mario Bros Wii,' I think there was something sweet about that that said it all in this beautiful way. 'Mario Maker,' put everything together in a wonderful way.







“Oh, and 'Mario 64' of course, that was the game that started it all for me in so many ways, suddenly being in everybody's house, and having people experience me as a part of that fun and joy in their life.







“I love 'Mario Sunshine.' That came out in 2002, and that was my first trip to Australia. Thank goodness they created the memory stick with the Gamecube, and you could save on it. So many of the journalists were real Mario enthusiasts, so they were much better than I was. So I would play, then they would pick up and get me to the next level, and I would make sure to save wherever they got me. I get to the 'Sorry, the Princess is in another castle,' but I never rescue the princess because I'm not that good. Then I meet these 7-year-olds, 'Oh yeah, I play all your games. I've beat them all.' 'You're 7 years old, how'd you beat them all?'”







As part of his appearance at Wizard World Pittsburgh, Martinet will be hosting a panel discussion on Saturday.







“The message that I want to bring home to fans, and the world and everybody, is do what you love to do. Find your passion, your joy, your love, your dreams and fill yourself with those dreams and live that life that you desire. Put yourself out there. It's vulnerable to be creative, it's vulnerable to want something, but if you commit yourself to your own happiness, and to bringing happiness or joy to other people, you'll get the opportunity.







“I like to say that life is kind of like a video game. You choose the character you're going to be in the morning, and you go through your adventures as that character, and you grow and you change and you evolve. Pretty soon you realize you've done that every day of your life, and you realize that you've created your own destiny, your own self as the hero of the game, so choose wisely.”

