Actor John Leguizamo has been filming the upcoming one Super Mario Bros film and criticized on social media that the cast of the animated adaptation was “too white.”
Leguizamo played Luigi in the infamous 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros Movie, alongside Bob Hoskins.
And last month, the 62-year-old actor-comedian wrote down his thoughts on the project following the release of the latest trailer, saying while he’s excited for the film, he was disappointed by the lack of diversity in the casting.
He also expressed regret that no one from the studio reached him during production.
“I’m so glad #SuperMarioBros is getting a reboot! Obviously it’s iconic enough. But too bad they turned all white! No Latinx in the Leading Roles! Groundbreaking colorblind casting in the original!” he tweeted.
“Plus, I’m the only one who knows how to script this movie!” he added, before posting three screenshots of himself and Hoskins from the 1993 film.
He then told viewers in the caption, “Now apologize to this movie!”
To be fair to Leguiziamo, he’s far from the only one to criticize Nintendo’s decision to cast Chris Pratt and Charlie Day as Italian plumbers in place of longtime Mario voice actor Charles Martinet, who has voiced the duo since 1992.
Reaction to Pratt’s performance in particular was mixed, with fans criticizing the Marvel actor’s shallow performance in contrast to Martinet’s colorful, cartoonish performance.
After the unveiling of the trailer star trek Actress Mica Burton said, “Okay, the animation for the Mario movie looks great and I’m excited to see what the plot of that is, but my god I can’t get over Chris Pratt just using his regular ass voice , JUST HIS NORMAL ASS VOICE FOR MARIO”
“Everything in the Mario trailer works except Mario,” another user tweeted, while a third added, “You can hear Mario by looking at him, know what Mario sounds like, expect him to speak, and only a normal male voice agrees.” listening is unnerving lmao.”
Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri told Variety Pratt that he was cast because: “We felt like he could do a great job as Mario. And now that we’ve got about 15 shots and the film is about three quarters done, I’m sitting here and saying that I love his performance as Mario.”
While he’s no longer around to share his take on the new film, it’s hard to imagine Bob Hoskins would have liked it.
The actor, who died in 2014, once told The Guardian that performing as Mario was the “worst” thing he’d ever done.
“The worst thing I’ve ever done? Super Mario Brothers. It was a bloody nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare,” he told the outlet in 2007.
“It was directed by a husband-and-wife team whose arrogance was mistaken for talent. After so many weeks, their own agent told them to get off the set! Damn nightmare. Damn idiots,” Hoskins added.
Leguiziamo now has much more positive memories of the film. During an interview marking the film’s anniversary, the actor said that despite the “failures” in the production, he was proud to have been a part of the first-ever video game movie.
“It was one of the first video game movies, so it was tough. It was a first, nobody had ever done it before, and they didn’t really know how to do it, so we were pioneers,” he said.
“We did a lot of great things, we made a lot of mistakes, but looking back I’m proud of the film.”
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