Entertainment

Seth Rogen and Jack Black on ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ voice controversy

Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on April 8, 2023

It certainly hasn’t negatively affected the box office numbers, but when the voice cast for The Super Mario Bros. Movie was heard for the first time, some fans grumbled that the characters didn’t sound enough like Mario, Luigi or Donkey Kong, but just like their real-life alter-egos Chris Pratt, Charlie Day and particularly, Seth Rogen.

First off, Donkey Kong sounds exactly like Seth Rogen, who had a laugh with ABC Audio over the mean tweets about it. “I know. I know I was like, ‘It’s me. Guess what? Guess what it sounds like? It’ll blow your mind.'”

He added, “I mean, yeah, if anything, it just spoke to how much people love Mario and how I think excited people are that, like, a good, potentially good version of this is being brought to movies, you know?”

Seth explained how he brought the famous ape to life. “I think of all the characters, there’s probably less pressure on this one specifically because he does not have a ton of personality ascribed to him…,” he said. “So I was able, I think, to really add a lot of my own sensibilities to it and come up with the dynamic that served the movie well, but also seemed to be inspired by what people know about Donkey Kong, which is pretty much that he doesn’t like Mario, and he’s throwing barrels at him as a result of it.”

Jack Black, who plays the baddie Bowser, told ABC Audio he was aware of the “social media chatter,” adding, “that comes with the territory…People are going to be real territorial about it, and they’re going to want to know what’s up. They’re going to want to…like, get their opinions all up in a bundle.”