Final Fantasy Actor Ben Starr Shares Funny Mario Audition As Original Voice Actor Steps Down

Ben Starr who is famed for playing Clive Rosfield in Final Fantasy 16 just uploaded his audition for playing Mario and social media can't have enough of his comedy chops. Nintendo recently confirmed that Charles Martinet, the original voice actor of Mario will be 'stepping back from recording character voices' for their games and will now be serving as a Mario Ambassador. Starr shared his self-made audition tape as a reply to Nintendo's announcement.
 

Starr did several iterations of Mario's famous one-liner, "It's a me, Mario!" and emoted each of them differently, even throwing in some James Bond-like impersonations and some F-bombs. Besides Final Fantasy XVI, Starr also stars in the tactical RPG titled Arknights for which he dubbed the English version of Sharp. Starr has also been seen in Netflix's You and Sky's Jamestown.

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Final Fantasy's Clive Rosfield Hilariously Presents his Case for Mario

When Starr was announced as the protagonist in the Final Fantasy series, fans had a mixed reaction to the name of the hero; many considered Clive to be a somewhat bland name for an action hero. Starr had addressed the reactions earlier this year.  "I've recently watched the film Air, the one about the Nike Air Jordans, and there's that line in it, which is, 'A shoe is a shoe until my son steps in it'. And I think what this game does brilliantly is, 'A name is just a name until Clive stepped into it," he said.

"And I could never imagine him having any other name. He is Clive Rosfield. Out of context, anything can sound ludicrous but I think he really lives up to this name. And I loved his name to begin with. I was like, 'Oh, interesting. It's not Lightning. It's not Cloud. It's Clive'." And though Starr's tape has the Internet, in reality, Nintendo has already tapped someone as the voice of Mario, who will be credited for Super Mario Bros.

Martinet started out as the voice of Mario roughly 21 years ago and his first appearance as Marior was in 1996’s Super Mario 64. Martinet has been credited for voicing Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi in over 150 Nintendo games. He also had a brief cameo in this year’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” in which Chris Pratt voiced Mario. Now, as a Mario ambassador, he is set to travel the world and interact with fans.