Chris Pratt and Charlie Day went too Goodfellas , Tony Soprano with Mario voices at first
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Finding the right voices for Mario and Luigi in The Super Mario Bros. Movie wasn't so easy for Chris Pratt and Charlie Day.
In a discussion with costars Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, and Keegan-Michael Key for EW's latest installment of Around the Table, the pair discussed how they first veered a touch too close to the thick accents of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas gangsters and Tony Soprano in HBO's The Sopranos before settling on the warmer voices heard in the film.
"We tried different things, different voices," Day says. "Every now and then they would say, 'Charlie, maybe a little less Goodfellas in this one' — I'm like, 'Alright! I think you're wrong, but fine!' — until they landed on something they liked."
"For a minute, I walked in and they were like, 'That's a little New Jersey. You're doing a Tony Soprano thing,'" Pratt says of his early feedback.
Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock; Nintendo; Illumination Entertainment & Universal Pictures Chris Pratt voices Mario in 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie'
In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Pratt's Mario and Day's Luigi, two brothers trying to get their plumbing business off the ground, are sucked through a green pipe portal into a magical world filled with the likes of Princess Peach (Taylor-Joy), Bowser (Black), Toad (Key), and Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen).
"It was a really exciting and daunting challenge," Pratt explains. "Talking to these guys, they say, 'You wanna do the Mario movie?' I think both of us said yes. Didn't even ask, 'What's the deal? What's the story?' 'Yes, I'm in.' And then we had to really dig in and figure out, Are they Italian? Are they American? We know a little bit about Charles Martinet's voice that he's sprinkled in there with the 'Wahoo!' and 'It's-a me!' and these Mario things, but how do you craft a 90-minute narrative with an emotional through-line and create a living, breathing person about who you'll care?"
Watch the Super Mario Bros. Movie cast discuss giving voice to their characters, the trials of voiceover performances, and more in the video above. The film is out in theaters this weekend.
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