One of the best things about Nintendo is that, more often than not, they care extremely about their fanbase and strive to deliver the best products possible. That applies to its video games, where they’ll often delay a title versus rushing it out, and even to its other media, where they want fans to have as much fun a time as possible. Just look at their amusement parks and movies for proof of that. However, there is a other side to this double-edged sword. Specifically, The Big N is known to be incredibly restrictive in other ways regarding their IPs, which applies to their voice actors quite a bit.
It’s true that, unlike Xbox and Sony, voice acting hasn’t always been the biggest deal with Nintendo. Many of its franchises haven’t even had voice acting for many years or haven’t had it in meaningful ways. However, as time went on, the company shifted that feeling, and now several of their IPs have great voice acting. To that end, at MCM Comic Con, many of the voice actors for Nintendo came together and revealed, as noted by The Gamer, that due to NDAs, they can’t willingly do voice recordings outside of the games themselves unless approved by the company.
Charles Martinet, who was the longtime voice of Mario up until recently, confirmed this happened to him during his tenure. Then, Patricia Summersett, who is the voice of Zelda in the most recent entries of The Legend of Zelda, commented on this, too:
“You sign these very strict NDAs, [but] you know what you’re signing into. It is very much about respecting the IP and doing it the way that Nintendo does it, which works very well for them. I know it can be disappointing sometimes when people want to record [us]. But when we’re recording and we’re doing lines, you can extract that, you now have AI and all these things. That’s not for us to do.”
Another voice actor noted that The Big N wouldn’t “drop the hammer on them” heavily if they were to do that, but they would send the message that they wouldn’t “be a team player.” In fact, both Summersett and the other actors said they fully understand why the company is trying to protect its characters and the actors themselves.
The worst thing they felt would happen if they broke the rules is that the company simply wouldn’t hire them for future projects, which they don’t want to risk…as they love working for Nintendo.
