Original 'Super Mario Bros' actor boycotting new movie over lack of Latino cast members
WASHINGTON (TND) — Actor John Leguizamo reportedly won't see Nintendo and Illumination's new "Super Mario Bros." movie over the lack of Latino voice actors in its cast.
The new "Super Mario Bros." movie is an animated feature with actors Chris Pratt and Charlie Day voicing the film's main heroes, "Mario" and "Luigi," respectively. Leguizamo famously starred as "Luigi" in the 1993 live-action "Super Mario Bros."
On Wednesday, the day before the new "Mario" movie was set to hit theaters,Leguizamo was interviewed by TMZ on the streets of New York City.
No, I will not be watching ‘Super Mario Bros,'” Leguizamo told TMZ “They could have included a Latin character... like, I was groundbreaking, and they stopped the groundbreaking. They messed up! They messed up the inclusion, they dis-included.”
"Mario" and "Luigi" are canonically of Italian descent. Actors Chris Pratt and Charlie Day are both white, with Pratt being of mostly Norwegian descent while Day is mainly of Irish and Italian descent.Leguizamo is Latino and was born in Columbia. He also has Spanish and "Basque" ancestry.
Leguizamo told TMZ he wants to see more "Latin folk" cast in Hollywood roles as they are "under-represented."
Cast some Latin folk. Just cast some Latin folk,” Leguizamo reportedly said. “We’re 20% of the population; the largest ‘people of color’ group, and we’re under-represented — over-represented in the worst kind of jobs, though."
The actor who previously played "Luigi" in the 1993 live-action "Mario" film was then asked again if he was going to see the new "Super Mario Bros." movie, to which he replied "Hell no."
It's not immediately clear from TMZ's interview ifLeguizamo is advocating for race-accurate casting, as some critics have, or if he is only advocating for more Latino inclusion in Hollywood.
If the actor is advocating the former, then his Latino self violated that accuracy by playing the Italian "Luigi" in the 1993 film. If it's the latter, then that raises the question of whyLeguizamo finds that important.
Leguizamo seemingly provides his answer to the latter part of that second question in a 2022 interview with Nick Barili for the Oscars series "Seen."Leguizamo says that Hollywood has a problematic history with "colorism."
There's colorism within Latin culture that we have to fix, but there's colorism in Hollywood, too,"Leguizamo says, adding that the reason he has been going to bat for other actors of color is that he wants to help change that. "You have to step up and make a change and change it from within."
Leguizamo tells Barili that once a person has "achieved a certain amount of success," he feels as though it becomes their "duty to give back," so that is what he's trying to do. The actor would apparently like to see more people of color in Hollywood roles, with an emphasis on Latino people.
And ifLeguizamo wants to see a Latino actor cast in a new "Mario" movie, he may be in luck. Actor Jack Black, who voices Mario's villainous antagonist "Bowser" in the animated movie, has recently said that he'd like to see actor Pedro Pascal cast as Mario antagonist "Wario."
It’s not a given that Bowser will return. You know, I did a few Kung Fu Panda movies, and it was a different villain every movie. They may do the same thing," Black told Game Spot in an interview. "You know, what if there is a more powerful, more evil villain? Then I may need to be turned to help Mario and the rest to defend our universe against some other unseen force of evil. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Wario. Pedro Pascal is Wario."
Pascal, known for his roles in HBO's "Game of Thrones" and "The Last of Us," as well as the lead role in Disney+'s "Star Wars: The Mandalorian," was born in Chile. Just like Leguizamo, Pascal has "Basque" ancestry and is considered Latino.