Chris Pratt genuinely uses the word ‘nuance’ to describe his Mario voice

Chris Pratt has discussed how he landed on the right voice for Mario ahead of his starring role in the upcoming video game adaptation, The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Pratt, who voices the Nintendo plumber opposite Charlie Day’s Luigi, spoke of the character in an interview with Collider, during which he said Mario’s voice developed not from “big, wide choices,” but out of “slightly nuanced…differences.” 

“I don’t know that I had big, wide choices that were all that different than what ended up,” Pratt said. “It was a little bit more, you know, slightly nuanced, the differences.” The actor revealed that he “tried a few different things” across “three or four [recording] sessions” before landing on what exactly Mario’s voice would sound like, which many have suggested is no different from Pratt’s own voice. 

“Once we had that figured out, I’d get to the session, they would play back the hit list of like the 15 or 20 phrases that they had that were like, ‘This is the voice, this is where we want it to be.’ And so once we did that, it would be like a little tuning horn.” Pratt reiterated the supposed “nuance” of his role in an interview with ComicBook, saying that settling on Mario’s voice involved “trying various things and determining what would work and what wouldn’t.” 

He continued: “Even the directors weren’t sure what exactly they wanted to land on, it took throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall, and cutting it all together… figuring out what best fit these characters that would both honor the performances of voice talent who’ve done Mario before, but also make sense with the narrative they crafted.” 

Pratt’s assessment of his voice acting follows the early fan backlash he received upon the release of the film’s initial trailer late last year. Angered by the actor’s use of his own voice in lieu of a more traditional-sounding Mario, fans launched a petition to have Pratt replaced in the film — a reaction which he later poked fun at alongside Day in a Twitter post. 

More recently, Pratt’s Mario voice seems to have been reappraised, after the actor received a warm welcome for his appearance at the grand opening of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios last month. Elsewhere, fans applauded Pratt’s efforts following the release of the third and final Super Mario Bros. trailer earlier this month. 

Pratt and Day lend their voices to the film alongside Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Jack Black as Bowser and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, the last of whom recently made clear he wouldn’t be doing any hackneyed voices for the role.