Nintendo Reveals More New Voice Actors for Mario Characters

Over the last two years, Nintendo has been recasting multiple voice actors associated with the Mario franchise. It started with Kevin Afghani taking over several roles previously voiced by Charles Martinet, including Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, and Mario himself. The recasts continued earlier this year, with Nintendo bringing over one actor from The Super Mario Bros. Movie; Koji Takeda voiced Donkey Kong in the Japanese version of the film, and officially became DK’s new voice actor in both Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. Now another two new actors have been announced for Nintendo Switch 2 games.

In Donkey Kong Bananza, Takeda is joined by Jenny Kidd, who voiced the younger version of Pauline. While Nintendo did bring in a new actress for the role, it’s important to note that this does not seem to be a replacement; Pauline is only 13 in Donkey Kong Bananza, and the adult version was still voiced by Kate Higgins in Mario Kart World. Higgins started in the role of Pauline in Super Mario Odyssey, and it appears she’ll be sticking around for future games, at least for the time being.

In addition to Jenny Kidd as Young Pauline, we now know the new actress voicing Princess Peach and Baby Peach. Prior to Mario Kart World, the role had been voiced by Samantha Kelly, who had also been the voice of Toad. Kelly revealed recently that the roles had been recast, but her replacement had not been announced. In a post on X/Twitter, Courtney Lin has now confirmed that she provided the voices for Peach and Baby Peach in Mario Kart World. Lin’s voice has been heard in a number of video games over the years, with the actress having appeared in games like Pokemon Masters EX, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Diablo IV.

It’s not entirely clear why Nintendo chose to swap out so many Mario actors over the last few years. When the announcement about Charles Martinet was made, many fans had speculated that Nintendo was making plans to bring the voices more in line with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Obviously that did prove to be the case with DK (at least in Japan), but the new voice actors have largely stuck to the voices established in past Mario games. Nintendo is clearly looking to keep things sounding familiar for those that have been playing games in the series for years.

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Whatever the reasoning for all these new voices in the series, Nintendo has clearly decided to head in a new direction with the start of the Switch 2 era. While the Mario family of characters does have a familiar set of established voices, the characters have always had limited speech in the games. Hopefully that makes the changes less jarring for fans, and we can see some kind of continuity in that regard.

How do you feel about these new voice actors for Mario characters? Do you wish Nintendo had kept the existing ones around? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!

[H/T: Nintendo Life]