There was a seismic shift in the gaming world a while back when it was revealed that Charles Martinet would stop being the main voice of Mario and several other Mushroom Kingdom characters for Nintendo games and other properties. Martinet was the voice of Mario and Co. for decades, and hearing that he was leaving was heartbreaking for many. Then, it was confirmed soon after that Nintendo had already cast a new voice actor for Mario and others for Super Mario Bros Wonder, the game that releases next week. However, they decided to stay tight-lipped on who it actually was.
Despite that, the voice actor himself has come forward on Twitter and revealed that he is the voice of Mario and Luigi in the upcoming 2D platformer. The actor in question is Kevin Afghani, and you can see his tweet about the subject below:
Now, to be clear, Nintendo themselves hasn’t said that Afghani is the voice of Mario and Luigi, but that would be a bold claim to make only for it to be a lie. Then again, this is Twitter, so anything is possible. Even with that uncertainty, we DO know that Kevin Afghani is a voice actor and has done work in video games, such as with Genshin Impact. Others in the comments of his tweet have praised him for his work and apparently enjoy his abilities as a voice actor.
The irony here is that while it’s good to know that he is the voice behind Mario and Luigi going forward, we’ll only hear small bits of that voice in the upcoming titles from Nintendo. But that will be enough to get gamers to enjoy his voice and hopefully not blast him for “not being Charles Martinet.” Speaking of whom, he has a new job that people are still trying to figure out.
You see, Martinet revealed that he’s not retiring from voice acting or other jobs, but that Nintendo asked him to be the “Mario Ambassador” for the brand, and that “title” has gotten some debate over the course of its revelation, mainly because neither Martinet nor Nintendo has said definitively what that means. Even Martinet joked at a Comic-Con appearance after the reveal that he has no idea what it means or what he’s supposed to do. More than likely, he’ll travel around and help ensure that people know about the various Mario properties that are set to come out soon, such as how Super Mario Bros Wonder is coming out on October 20th.
