American · b. 1955 · 1990s – 2020s
Charles Martinet defined the voice of Mario for nearly three decades, turning a cartoon plumber into one of the most recognisable vocal characters in the history of entertainment.
Charles Martinet auditioned for the Mario role in 1992 by improvising an Italian-accented stream of cheerful exclamations — "It's-a me, Mario!" — entirely on instinct. The characterisation was so natural and so exactly what Nintendo needed that he was hired on the spot. His vocal work debuted in interactive kiosks before appearing in Super Mario 64 (1996), the first major Mario platformer with fully voiced dialogue. Over the following decades Martinet voiced Mario, Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Mario, and Baby Luigi simultaneously, often recording all characters in a single session. His performance style — exuberant, warm, and physically committed — involved shouting the lines as though genuinely inhabiting the action, which gave the characters an immediacy that text descriptions could not convey.