Martinet never intended to become an actor. Instead, his original career path was something much more stable and grounded — two things Mario hardly ever is! "My intention was to be an attorney," he reveals. "I decided to take a semester off and a friend of mine said, 'You've gotta come and take an acting class.' And I said, 'There's absolutely no way I will ever be an actor. I can't speak in front of people. I can't stand in front of people.' And somehow he talked me into it. I have no idea how."

Although performing his first monologue had him literally shaking in his boots, the praise he received for his performance inspired him to conquer his nerves and develop this previously unknown talent. "And sure enough, each time it got more fun," Martinet recalls. "And then all of a sudden, I was wanting to audition for a play, and then I did speech tournaments and the Berkley Repertory Theater came around and I auditioned and had an apprenticeship with them."

Martinet began appearing in some corporate films, and during one of those, he was asked if he also did voices, and not wanting to miss out on the extra work, quickly said yes, not even knowing what he was doing. "He gave me a script and I said, 'Orchard Supply Hardware. The right item at the right price... right now.' Perfect! One take! And here's some more money for doing that. And I said, 'I am a voiceover actor!'"

But his life would change forever when a friend convinced him to crash an audition for an electronics trade show and he was asked to perform the voice of a special little plumber and imagine what kind of videogame he would appear in. "And I'm like, are you kidding me? An Italian plumber from Brooklyn?" Martinet chuckles. "'Hey! Howya doin'? I'm undah yer sink, don't botha me heah.' That's too coarse. I'd like to do something more gentle and more fun if it's going to be talking to kids. So I'm sitting there thinking I could do something nicer than that, but I don't know anything about videogames.

"So I'm sitting there thinking about what to do, and all of a sudden I hear, 'Action!'" he continues. "And I turned to the camera, and I said — in the voice that you hear today — 'Hello! I'ma Mario! Okie Dokie! Let's make a pizza pie together! You go get some sausage, I'ma gonna get some spaghetti, we're gonna put the spaghetti and sausage in the pizza then I'ma gonna chase you with the pizza and then you chase me with the pizza and if you catch me with the pizza we gonna makea lasagna and spaghetti and meatball...' And I just... I don't know what I said. I just kept talking and talking until I heard 'Cut! Stop! The tape's run out. Thank you, we'll be in touch.' And as soon as he said that, I went, 'Oh, there's the kiss of death.' I left and went to the beach, and sure enough, when I left the room, he called Don James at Nintendo and said, 'I found our Mario' and mine was the only tape that he sent up there. So that was 20 marvelous years ago and I still haven't finished talking, obviously!"

At the trade shows, Martinet would give voice to Mario while sensors attached to his face would be used to animate a polygonal Mario on a screen that would interact with people. "It was called MIRT," Martinet explains. "Mario In Real Time. And then Wario, WIRT. And then we had Donkey Kong, DIRT. IT was all really great, great fun." While he still does the trade shows, improvements in technology means the actor doesn't have to have sensors stuck to his face, but can simply speak into a microphone and the computer will simply recognize the sounds he makes and animate accordingly. "The animation is marvelous," Martinet says. "And I don't have to wear anything on my face anymore! But I tell you, it was so funny. Back in those days, we used a supercomputer that was like a big coffee table. And we had to use dry ice on it because so many calculations were happening it was overheating. And of course, when it's overheating, I start overheating, and the surgical glue starts to melt and the character isn't moving right, so we're taping surgical tape to my face. And at the end of doing a two- or three-day trade show, I looked like I had... foot in mouth disease or something!"

Martinet also counts himself lucky to have been part of the groundbreaking Super Mario 64, the first game in which he starred as Mario. "That was a miraculous day," he sighs. "Because when Mr. Miyamoto comes up with an idea, it changes the lives of millions of people and changes directions of the whole industry. I mean, there was Mario running around and playing and 'Woo hoo!' in this three dimensional world. And just doing that session was absolutely magical, because out of that session things like, 'Woo hoo! Let'sa go! Okie dokie! Oh, mama mia!' and 'Waaah!' started coming out, and it's been 20 marvelous, joyful years doing that."

The recording sessions where he gives voice to a multitude of characters can last for hours, and while some of the lines are scripted, others are improvised as Martinet views the animations the programmers have already completed. "We do a lot of playing around with the different qualities of the sounds and the voice things that we do," he explains. Being a voice actor means that Martinet enjoys a certain amount of anonymity, but he still is asked to perform on command at the most random times! "I have the most wonderful type of fan," he says. "Because when I come to an event, people know who I am and the recognition is very touching. It's very, very nice and very, very kind. People will sometimes wait for hours to take a photograph or get an autograph. And then I walk out the door and I am completely anonymous again. So that's kind of neat. Occasionally people recognize me on the street. I was in Heidleberg and somebody walked up to me, 'Are you Charles Martinet? You're Mario, right?' And I'm like, 'Yes! How did you know that? How do you know these things?'"

Martinet gives voice to a multitude of Nintendo characters, and can shift through them effortlessly in conversation like a man possessed as the voices of Mario, Wario, Luigi, Baby Luigi, Baby Mario and others emerge from his mouth. "And then occasionally I do other voices in the game, and I forget that I do them," he chuckles. "I was playing Mario Sunshine and I heard, 'Welcome to the Isle Delfino.' And I'm like, 'Oh! I remember doing that!'"

But while Nintendo isn't his only employer, it's the one he holds most dear in his heart. "I do other voice work and occasionally on-camera work, too," Martinet says. "But of course, my favorite thing in the world to do is Mario. Because what could be better than this wonderful, fun, creative, happy character. And you know, when you do voiceover work, you do it 100 percent. You're like the dog chasing the ball on the beach, that's all you're focused on. So when you're doing joy, it's not 'yay.' It's 'Yee hee!' I have such a wonderful life. What a gift."