The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Finally Confirms Yoshi Voice Actor (And It Fixes a 33 Year Old Mistake)

One of the most surprising elements of The Super Mario Bros. Movie wasn’t just that Chris Pratt would be taking on the voice of the titular plumber from Nintendo’s iconic video games, but that his green dinosaur sidekick Yoshi was nowhere to be found. As fans may recall, though, the 2023 hit offered a tease of his arrival. In a post-credit scene that hinted at where the sequel film would go, his trademark egg appeared and began to hatch. Naturally, fans knew this meant the sequel movie would finally give us Yoshi, and we’re just weeks away from his debut.

Today, Nintendo and Illumination revealed the final trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, not only offering a bigger tease at the scope and story of the animated sequel but also new footage of some of its biggest characters. In addition, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri appeared to confirm casting for the sequel, including who will voice Yoshi in the film. Teased as an “incredibly talented actor who also happens to be a Nintendo super fan,” Meledandri confirmed today that Donald Glover will be voicing Yoshi in the new film, a change that fans didn’t see coming and which is already being praised online.

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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Confirms Donald Glover Is Yoshi

Glover has long been a fan-favorite actor across his many projects, including playing Troy Barnes on the NBC sitcom Community, plus his hit FX series Atlanta, and, of course, taking over the role of Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. In addition, though, Glover is a noted Nintendo fan, as Meledandri mentioned. A profile in The New Yorker from 2018 revealed that Glover meticulously calculated the right time for a call-in contest with The Disney Channel in order to win a Nintendo 64 (he got one).

Nintendo and Illumination confirming Glover’s involvement paints a distinct picture of how Yoshi will be utilized in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Though he normally just says his name in the games, the dinosaur will seemingly get his place in the spotlight, as one assumes Glover won’t just be channeling Vin Diesel and his Groot performance with varied sayings on one line. The trailers and footage for the film have confirmed at least one sequence in the film with Yoshi carrying Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, perhaps giving him the chance to offer some chaotic dialogue as the character.

An element of Donald Glover’s casting as Yoshi that may go unnoticed is that it finally gives fans something they’ve waited decades for. Not just in the sense of Super Mario Bros. being a 40-year-old franchise, but with how Yoshi was previously seen on the big screen. As fans may recall, the reviled 1993 film Super Mario Bros. did bring Yoshi to the big screen, though he was just a small part of the film (and adorable in his own way), it was a far cry from what fans were used to seeing in Mario video games. Now, 33 years after that film’s release, Mario fans are finally getting what they want.