While his co-star Chris Pratt has taken to promoting The Super Mario Bros. Movie by attempting to assuage fans’ concerns regarding source material accuracy, Seth Rogen has conversely decided the best way to market his latest project is to reveal that he cared little for even trying to give Donkey Kong a voice of his own.
Reflecting on his approach to bringing Mario’s longtime ape adversary to life during a recent interview with Comicbook.com, the actor recalled how he told the film’s production team, “I was very clear, I don’t do voices. And if you want me to be in this movie, it’s gonna sound like me and that’s it.”
Laughing, Rogen added, “And that was the beginning and end of that conversation.”
“I was like, ‘If you want Donkey Kong to sound a lot like me, I’m your guy,'” he said. “But it did seem to work, you know, I think in the film and in the game I think all you really know about Donkey Kong is that he throws barrels and he does not like Mario very much.”
“That’s honestly kind of what I ran with was this idea that he hates Mario, that they are kind have like an adversarial relationship, that he’s annoyed by him, that he doesn’t want to be stuck with him, that he wishes he was on this adventure without him,” the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem producer concluded. “To me that was, that was funny and that was kind of the root of the character and it was kind of born of the mythology of the games.”
As noted above, Rogen’s seeming indifference to even attempting to separate his own real-world image from that of the Nintendo mainstay’s stands in stark contrast to Pratt’s own efforts to reassure fans that the film does its best to keep the Mario series’ ‘magic’ alive.
Responding to criticisms of his ‘Mario voice’ during a recent interview with Extra, Pratt playfully encouraged critical fans to “Come watch the movie, and then we can talk. I really think that once you see the movie, and you know what, in all honesty, I think you probably need to watch it twice.”
Returning to a more serious demeanor, the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 star affirmed, “In all honesty the answer, though, is that this is a passionate fanbase and it makes sense. I understand, I’m part of it.”
“This is, you know, the soundtrack to your youth,” said the actor. “You don’t want someone to come along and cynically destroy it as a cash grab with a movie. I fully understand that, you do not want that to happen, and there are so many hearts and souls and minds dedicated to making sure that didn’t happen.”
“And you saw the movie,” he continued. “It really honors the video game, it honors the world of Mario and it’s very promising as to what we could expect over the next 10 years, like an entire universe of these types of movies.”
The Super Mario Bros. barrels into theaters on April 5th.
