Just as James Corden seems to pop up in a lot of musicals, “Guardians of the Galaxy” star Chris Pratt is showing up in a lot of animated features these days.
He had the two “LEGO Movie” titles and Pixar’s “Onward” under his belt, but more recently he scored the two high profile jobs of playing the lead roles in both the new “Super Mario Bros.” and “Garfield” animated movies.
The Mario casting, in particular, surprised many as the actor seems to be an odd fit for the role of an Italian plumber. This week Chris Meledandri, CEO of Illumination Entertainment and a producer on the ‘Mario’ film, tells TooFab that people shouldn’t worry:
“All I can tell you is the voice that he’s doing for us, and Mario, is phenomenal. Yeah, I can’t wait for people to hear it.”
Meledandri goes on to say that as an Italian-American himself he understands the concerns, and points out that Charlie Day who plays Luigi actually has Italian heritage. Asked how much the film will lean into the Italian-ness of the character, he says:
“We cover it in the movie. So you’ll see we definitely nod to that, but that’s not the tenor of the performance throughout the film.”
Whether we’ll get the iconic “It’s-a-me, Mario!” line… we’ll see. “Super Mario Bros.” opens in cinemas on December 21st 2022.