Charles Martinet is an American voice actor who is best known for voicing Mario in the Super Mario video game series. Working for Nintendo since 1990, Martinet started voicing Mario at video game trade shows in which attendees would walk up to a TV screen displaying a 3D Mario head that moved around the screen and talked. This system was called Mario in Real-Time (MIRT) and was developed by SimGraphics. Martinet could see the attendees by means of a hidden camera and his mouth movements were captured by a facial motion capture device which synchronize Martinet’s mouth movement with the on-screen Mario mouth movement.

Martinet has been voicing characters in the Super Mario franchise since 1995 with his first role voicing Mario in “Mario’s Game Gallery’ also known as “Mario’s FUNdamentals” for the PC. However, most would be more familiar with his work as Mario in Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64 in 1996. He also voices many other characters in the Super Mario series such as Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi and Toadsworth. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized Martinet for having performed the same character in one hundred different titles, the most of any video game voice actor.

In additions to his contribution in the Mario series Martinet provided voiceover acting for the boxers and the announcer in the Super Nintendo title Super Punch-Out!!. He voiced the character Vigoro in Skies of Arcadia. Charles has also done work for the video game Cel Damage as the voice of Fowl Mouth, voiced the dragon Paarthurnax in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Orvus in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time and narrated the cutscenes in Runner2 and Runner3.