Once more the argument between voice actors and actors is in the news again and raises the age-old question of who does Hollywood choose to fit its voice roles? There are many trained voice workers out there who have a range far surpassing many, but at the same time adding an A-list celebrity to your leading roles is surely a smart move from a financial and advertising perspective.
The Super Mario Movie is one of the most recent hot topics which has both been praised and rejected for its voice talent with many praising Jack Black's delivery as Bowser and continuously dismissing Chris Pratt as Mario. It is just one movie amongst many, however, whether the studio is Illumination, Disney, or Dreamworks, it does feel as though these titans of animation step over the suitable choices for voice acting and push toward celebrities who speak in their regular voice.
Super Mario is not a stranger to TV and movies, but it has certainly been a long time since the plumber was last on a silver screen. Back then there was no voice for Mario in the video games, so there would be nothing to relate back to when selecting Bob Hoskins to play the live-action version, or when creating the animated show. The only character creation they had would be based on Mario being Italian-American which looks like has been avoided in the upcoming movie. However, since then, Charles Martinet has held the helm for voicing a large quantity of Super Mario characters including the titular character, but at the same time there isn't a great amount of dialogue and many would not prefer 90 minutes of Martinet's high-pitched vocal delivery.
Taking big franchises to the screen always raises the question of who will voice the main characters if they haven't had a movie previously or for a while. Fans were outraged when Scooby-Doo returned to the big screen in Scoob! back in 2020 and did not feature long-standing Shaggy voice actor Matthew Lillard who had voiced the character since 2009 and instead Will Forte. The only remaining voice cast member from the show was original cast member Frank Welker, but instead of playing both Fred and Scooby, he voiced Scooby, and Hollywood favorite Zac Effron was chosen to play Fred. Other voice actors for Shaggy such as Matthew Lillard, Billy West, and Scott Innes pleasantly stayed true to the original Casey Kasem voice even if it weren't perfect, but the Will Forte voice delivery felt so far from the original.
When taking a look at animation during the 20th century, it didn't matter whether a big name was featured, animation wasn't considered a form of real cinema. Adding to that claim, it felt for a long time that Disney'sanimated powerhouse was advertised solely to children who wouldn't have cared whose name featured in the opening credits. Most Disney movies during its peak would have featured the same voice actors in multiple movies including Phil Harris (The Jungle Book, Robin Hood) and Sterling Holloway (The Jungle Book, Alice In Wonderland, Winnie The Pooh). If anything Holloway sounded similar in a lot of Disney movies with that distinctive soft Winnie The Pooh voice.
Disney in the past is a prime example of if a voice actor dies or is replaced who played a historic character such as Mickey Mouse, Winnie The Pooh, or Goofy, the voice replacement such as Bill Farmer or Jim Cummings has always stayed true to that established character's voice. Some franchises owned by Disney have changed their voice roles due to the deaths of disputes, but a franchise like The Muppets has struggled to get things right recently. Whilst Jim Henson's replacement such as Steve Whitmire stayed true to the original voice, Matt Vogel's lower tone of voice feels out of place.
Even during Disney's animated renaissance in the 90s, the films produced such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty And The Beast didn't rely solely on established actors and still provided a lot of vocal talent from voice actors, especially Jodi Benson (Ariel) who would go on to voice multiple Disney and Pixar roles. Obviously, the live-action variants feel like they have to push established actors due to their presence on screen. Pixar however, has certainly relied more on big names, but it all seems to click for the most part, even in Lightyear where Chris Evans replaced Tim Allen as the voice of Buzz.
Sometimes an actor starts off on the screen and then progresses into voice work such as the aforementioned Matthew Lillard, but names such as Mark Hamill, anyone from The Simpsons, or Seth Green also merged well into the animated department. For some people, it just works and for some actors with a voice like Samuel L. Jackson or Tom Hanks, the distinctive variety they put into their work pays off well and these are actors who certainly show their time and effort was put into the voice role.
Even some of the most iconic voices in animation, more so television have come around from voice actors such as Mel Blanc (Looney Tunes), Charlie Adler (Cow & Chicken), and Tom Kenny (Catdog, SpongeBob SquarePants) playing multiple roles in a show because they're both a great voice actor, and animation is expensive so money must be saved. To take a well-loved and well-known character like Bugs Bunny and change their name would be unheard of because their identity has been established.
When looking at studios like Dreamworks and Illumination, their last outings are not shy of featuring big-name actors, but there feels like these studios choose actors for their voice range for a lot of the side characters and also choose a huge name to play the lead. It's not even worth noting that Warner Animation'sDC: League Of Super-Pets is an all-star cast for the wrong reason and The Rock is another actor who, despite having a nice voice and singing capabilities, sounds similar in a lot of his work. It begs the question of whether animated cinema is still taken as seriously even though it is an industry that relies heavily on voice work.
Despite only hearing around five words from Chris Pratt in The Super Mario Movie, judging from his voice work in Pixar's Onward, it is bizarre to think that he has spent hours upon hours training for such voice roles. It feels as though Pratt like many actors has a particular character type and for him, it is the energetic goofball that doesn't provide the range TheSuper Mario Movie needs.
As long as animated films have big budgets and big payouts with huge celebrity advertisements and placements, it is hard to see how things will change for now. It is time that studios looked at voice acting as a serious art form and really established the names that provide so much talent and entertainment.