Chris Pratt was nervous about taking on The Super Mario Bros Movie - now he’s sure fans will love it

Internet jibes aside, Chris Pratt is one of the most likeable stars in Hollywood. It’s a reputation he earned playing the lovable dummy, Andy, in the hit sitcom Parks and Recreation, and cemented with a much bigger audience as the outlaw-turned-hero, Star-Lord, in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. So, it probably seemed like a no-brainer to cast Pratt as the voice of the iconic Nintendo character, Mario, in The Super Mario Bros Movie, a new collaboration between the Japanese gaming giant, Universal Pictures and Illumination, the award-winning animation studio that gave us the Despicable Me movies. That’s not to say any casting decision would’ve been easy, due to the fraught history of bringing this legendary character to the big screen. A 1993 live-action movie featured English actor Bob Hoskins in the role, and that film was so bad — off-brand and a commercial disaster — that it essentially poisoned the well as far as Nintendo’s enthusiasm for allowing its intellectual property to be adapted by filmmakers. The company wasn’t nearly as reluctant to licence its properties to Universal Parks & Resorts, and it was the process of creating Super Nintendo Worlds at Universal’s global theme park network that paved the way for a return to Hollywood. It was during this process Nintendo encountered Illumination, and, over a period of about five years, the collaboration developed, really hitting its stride with the appointment of Teen Titans Go! creators Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic as directors of a new animated film. In late 2021, Nintendo announced the cast for the adaptation, which included Pratt in the titular role, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Mario’s brother Luigi, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Jack Black as the film’s villain Bowser, and comedian Keegan-Michael Key as a mushroom named Toad. Then the teaser trailer dropped in October last year, and fans of the game franchise, somewhat predictably, lost their minds. Just as the early trailer for the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog movie resulted in a nerd meltdown on social media, this first glimpse at The Super Mario Bros Movie incensed gamers who felt Pratt just didn’t sound like Mario. To be fair, said gamers were very familiar with the voice of the Nintendo character, which had been provided (along with that of Luigi) in the games by voice actor Charles Martinet since 1991. The reaction, as visceral as it was in some corners of the internet, didn’t come as a surprise to Pratt, because he identified with the very people tweeting criticism his way. “I’ve known these characters for a very long time, I’ve played the game for the better part of 30 years,” Pratt says on a Zoom call with STM. “And so I knew that the fans would be really passionate and would be eager to see this movie, but also upset if it got ruined, so that was important to us that we didn’t ruin it, and thankfully, we didn’t.” Pratt’s confidence is well-founded, with the questions around his performance increasingly fading away as the public gets more exposure to his version of Mario. But it’s fair to say there may have initially been a little fake-it-til-you-make-it aspect to his bullishness around the project. “People express their passion online about getting it right, getting the voices right, and all of that stuff, and so I got nervous,” he admits. “I was like, ‘oh my gosh, what if I didn’t get it right?’ But then I saw the movie, and I was like, ‘oh, we killed this, no one’s gonna have an issue with this, it’s frickin’ awesome,’ so that was pretty great.” The studio tapped Matthew Fogel for the screenplay, who brings the same sense of humour to the Super Mario Bros world he brought to the script of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Pratt, of course, provides the voice of the lead character in the Lego movies, while Day is a scene-stealer as a 1980s-era Lego spaceman, so the chance to play brothers in The Super Mario Bros Movie was a welcome reunion for the actors. The relationship with Mario and Luigi, and the decision to reframe the character of Peach, giving her more agency, is at the heart of the film’s plot. “You know, the original game was Mario and Luigi saving a princess, and it actually wasn’t Princess Peach, it was just a princess (in a castle),” Pratt explains. “And then . . .over the course of the last 38 years of Super Mario Bros, it wasn’t necessarily this movie that took it in that step towards equality, it was really the games, because all of a sudden Peach was one of the characters you could play in Mario Kart or Smash Brothers. “It’s a full-fledged character that people could see themselves in, as being more than a damsel in distress, and instead an actual hero in a video game.” For Day, the gradual evolution of Peach in the games made the plot of the movie adaptation so much richer. “It’s much more interesting to have that character have agency within the story, and that she really is driving the story as much as Mario is driving the story,” Day tells STM. “It’s also a really good motivation for Mario to want to save someone who is his own brother, as opposed to in the video game, where he’s sort of saving a princess that he doesn’t know.” Pratt couldn’t agree more. “It really makes sense for this story that Mario would be rescuing his brother,” the Guardians of the Galaxy star says. “The two of them get lost in the first act — they start in Brooklyn, they get sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom, and he needs to enlist the help of somebody who knows what’s going on there and happens to be a princess. She does have a tonne of power, and she rides a motorcycle and she’s really cool. “I have two daughters, and I love the idea that they can see themselves in Peach, not as somebody who needs to be rescued per se, but as somebody who’s willing to join a team and be part of the team that does the rescue.” With the film expected to power-up at the worldwide box office, rumours are Illumination is already considering a Donkey Kong spin-off with Seth Rogen set to reprise the role. Pratt’s attention will soon turn to promoting a third GOTG instalment, which is due next month, but, for now, he hopes the millions of Nintendo fans around the world will see what he did in The Super Mario Bros Movie. “I’m a huge fan of Super Mario, I started playing when I was nine years old,” he says. “It’s fantastic, it’s a great game, it’s a great world, (and I think) the movie is fantastic and does justice to the video game. People are really passionate about these characters, and they ought to be, but they won’t be disappointed.” The Super Mario Bros Movie is in cinemas on April 5.