Who provided Mario’s voice in Nintendo’s Super Mario 64?

Charles Martinet provided Mario’s voice in Nintendo’s Super Mario 64.

Super Mario 64 was released for the Nintendo 64 in Japan in 1996 and helped define Mario’s voice for a worldwide audience. Martinet’s energetic exclamations, including Mario’s famous greeting, became closely associated with the character during the transition from sprite-based games to 3D animation.

Before Super Mario 64, Mario’s sounds were generally short samples, grunts, or other limited vocal effects rather than extensive spoken performance. The game gave Mario a much larger three-dimensional world and made expressive voice acting more prominent. Martinet continued voicing Mario in many later Nintendo games, as well as other characters such as Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi.

A common mix-up is confusing the voice actor with Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario’s creator and a major Nintendo designer. Miyamoto helped shape the game, but Charles Martinet performed Mario’s voice. Super Mario 64 was also one of the Nintendo 64’s major launch-period titles, although its exact release timing varied by region.