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Charles_Martinet

Charles Martinet
Charles Martinet (born September 17 1955, in San Jose, California) is a voice actor, best known for providing the voice of Mario, the star of Nintendo's flagship video game franchise. He also voices Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Toadsworth, and a select few other characters, all from the same series.

Audition for Mario

Charles Martinet was told by his friend that there was going to be an audition at a trade show in which you "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 little children to hear, so he made it a 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.

In trade shows

Working for Nintendo since 1987, 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 moved around the screen and talked. This system was called "Mario in Real-Time" or "MIRT". Martinet could see the attendees by means of a hidden camera setup, and a facial motion capture rig recorded his mouth movements in order 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.

Video games

Martinet's video game voiceover debut was as Mario in the 1995 Windows release of Interplay's game Mario's FUNdamentals. However, most were first exposed to Mario's voice in the landmark 1996 game Super Mario 64. He has voiced Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Toadsworth, Baby Mario, and Baby Luigi in most games wherein these characters speak. He also voiced the enemies Wart, Mouser, Tryclyde, and Clawgrip in Super Mario Advance. His voice work appears in the English and Japanese-language versions of the games.

Martinet also provided voiceover acting for the boxers and the announcer in the Super NES title Super Punch-Out!!. He also voiced the character Vigoro in Sega's Dreamcast and GameCube RPG, Skies of Arcadia. He is also the voice of Homunculus in the Konami PlayStation 2 game Shadow of Destiny, and provided voices for Reader Rabbit and The ClueFinders games.

Martinet has also worked as a voice actor in commercials, cartoons, and promotions. At the E3 trade show in 2005, Charles (as an Animal Crossing character) could be found roaming the virtual village featured in the playable demo of Animal Crossing: Wild World. Martinet also did Mario's voice as the voice announcer for Pac-Man Vs. on the GameCube.

Other than Mario, Charles has done work for the video game Cel Damage as the voice of Fowl Mouth.

Martinet has also done the primary voice work in several educational game series such as Leap Frog.

During E3, 2006, Martinet appeared on a human height LCD screen with the "MIRT" system, this can be seen on Gamespot's coverage of the Wii at E3.

On August 18, 2006, Martinet appeared as a guest celebrity at Nintendo Power's annual event, Camp Hyrule.

On March 9, 2007, Martinet appeared as a guest at the Video Games Live Concert in San Francisco, California, USA (alongside Koji Kondo and Shigeru Miyamoto), entering on stage using his trademark Mario and Luigi voices.

On November 15, 2007, Martinet made a guest appearance at the Game Store at Oxford Street UK launch of Super Mario Galaxy.

On August 24, 2008, Martinet appeared at the Nintendo World Store in New York City to promote the release of Mario Super Sluggers, which the game was released in the store a day earlier than the official August 25 release date. People who purchased the game received a free baseball with the Mario Super Sluggers logo on it and a chance to meet Martinet where they could get an autograph and take pictures with him.

Filmography

  • Brotherhood of Justice (1986) (TV) .... Deputy
  • Hard Traveling (1986) .... Dist. Atty. Cobb
  • The Dead Pool (1988) .... Police Station Reporter #1
  • Midnight Caller .... Mark Heller (1 episode, 1989)
  • Matlock .... Bo Edmunds (1 episode, 1989)
  • Mom (1990) .... Mr. Hernandez
  • The Last of His Tribe (1992) (TV) .... Assistant Museum Director
  • Reasonable Doubts .... Bartender (1 episode, 1992)
  • Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (1993) .... Pilot B
  • Criminal Hearts (1995) (as Charles Martinez) .... Juan
  • Compromising Situations .... Sal (1 episode, 1995)
  • Nine Months (1995) .... Arnie
  • Nash Bridges .... Hermsdorf (1 episode, 1996)
  • Death in Granada (1997) .... Gravedigger
  • The Game (1997) .... Nicholas' Father
  • A Thousand Men and a Baby (1997) (TV) .... Seattle cab driver
  • Sheer Passion (1998) .... Lou
  • Air America .... David Dixon (1 episode, 1998)
  • ER .... Eddy (1 episode, 2002)
  • NYPD Blue .... Court Officer (1 episode, 2003)
  • The Californians (2005) .... City Councilman

Video games

References

External links

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Friday October 03, 2008 at 07:28:24 PDT (GMT -0700)
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