Charles Martinet

Charles Martinet formed his acting philosophy in his first acting class, as in that class, there was a man who suffered from a terrible stutter, and he found out from him what happened: on his 21st birthday, he went to Las Vegas to see the live performance of a comedian with his friends, but that evening, the comedian made insulting jokes at his expense, something that scarred him for life, as he woke up with a stutter the next day after spending the night in an hotel.

This story affected Martinet so much that he swore that he would never do offensive jokes.

Martinet auditioned for and won an apprenticeship at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

After training with the Berkeley Rep for several years, Martinet went to London to attend the Drama Studio London, where among other skills, he discovered his talent for accents and dialects.

Upon returning to California he joined the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

He went on to become a founding member of the San Jose Repertory Theatre for four years.

Charles Andre Martinet (, ; born September 17, 1955) is an American actor.

Charles Andre Martinet was born on September 17, 1955, in San Jose or Cupertino, California to father Jacques René Pierre Martinet.

The younger of two children, he has an older brother, John, though he was taller than him despite being the younger sibling, and while his brother was extroverted, Charles was shy and more anxiety-driven than him in his youth.

His mother's family had been in the country since the Mayflower voyages, while his father grew up in Paris, France, and Martinet's paternal grandfather served in World War I under General Pershing in order to get eligibility for American citizenship; they then came to the US when Martinet was a child.

This makes him French-American.

His family moved to Barcelona, Spain when he was 12 years old, where he attended an American middle school.

In 1969, after 3 years in Spain, they moved to Paris, France.

As a result, he became fluent in Spanish and French; he can also speak a little bit of Italian.

He attended the American School of Paris and graduated in 1974.

As a young adult, Martinet became interested in international law.

He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in history or politics.

In his senior year, he decided to discontinue his studies after a tutor told him to "regurgitate information he'd written in his book, chapter-by-chapter".

When he was about 20 years old, a friend persuaded him to take acting classes to combat his fear of public speaking.

His first role was a monologue from the Spoon River Anthology.

Martinet earned the job as Mario's voice at Nintendo when one day in 1991, he was on the beach and received a call from a friend who told him that there was going to be an audition at a trade show in which auditioneers "talk to people as a plumber".

He went to the audition at the last minute as the casting directors were already putting away their equipment.

Charles Martinet walked in and asked, "Can I please read for this?".

The directors let him audition and told him, "You're an Italian plumber from Brooklyn".

At first Martinet planned to talk like a stereotypical Italian American with a deep, raspy voice.

He then thought to himself that it would be too harsh for children to hear, so he made it more soft-hearted and friendly, resulting in what Mario's voice is today.

Martinet has also stated that he kept on talking with his Mario voice until the audition tape ran out.

He says that Gremio from William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew was an inspiration for his portrayal of Mario.

Working for Nintendo since 1991, Martinet started voicing Mario at video game trade shows in which attendees would walk up to a TV screen displaying a 3-D Mario head that was designed to move around the screen and hold full conversations with them.

This system was called Mario in Real-Time or MIRT and was developed by Pasadena based SimGraphics.

Martinet could see the attendees by means of a hidden camera setup, and a facial motion capture rig recorded his mouth movements to synchronize Martinet's mouth movement with the on-screen Mario mouth movement.

This digital puppetry, with Martinet's comic performance, was a novelty at the time.

Martinet also voiced Mario in the 1992 Super Mario Bros. pinball arcade machine.

Martinet developed the voices of both Mario and Luigi in the Super Mario video game series, portraying them from 1994 to 2023.

He also voiced other characters in the series such as Wario, Waluigi, and the baby equivalents of Mario and Luigi, prior to stepping down as voice actor to become an official brand ambassador for the series.

Martinet's first video game appearance as Mario was in the 1994 CD version of Mario Teaches Typing and formally debuted in the 1995 release of Mario's Game Gallery, where he spoke full dialogue as Mario for extended periods of time to the player.

Most were first exposed to Mario's voice in the landmark 1996 game Super Mario 64.

During his time working through MIRT, Martinet became acquainted with Mario series creator Shigeru Miyamoto.

Martinet is also known for his portrayal of Paarthurnax in 2011's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, as well as Magenta in 2022's Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.

His last name is sometimes spelled "Martinee" or "Martinez".