Chris Pratt Explains Why There’s a Big Change With Mario’s “Mamma Mia” Catchphrase

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is finally in theaters this week, and the long-awaited sequel is driving up hype online with unexpected connections to other Nintendo franchises outside the mainline Mario games on which it is based. Illumination, the team behind both of the Super Mario movies, clearly has big aspirations for their partnership with Nintendo. At the center of that franchise is Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario. The Guardians of the Galaxy actor has brought an entirely new angle to the iconic video game character, who has mostly kept quiet in his video game appearances, though he has admitted struggling with the character in one interesting way.

In an interview with Screen Rant, Pratt talked about the various challenges that came with bringing a voice and personality to Mario. Having been a video game character since before there was spoken dialogue in games, Pratt had to find a way to bring life to the character in a way that hasn’t been done before. Interestingly, what Pratt would struggle with the most is one of Mario’s most iconic catchphrases. It’s the line of “Mamma Mia” that got to Pratt, as he would go into great detail about the line and how its delivery never felt in line with his interpretation of the character, but how he still managed to make the most of it.

When asked about challenging vocal elements of the character, Pratt revealed:

“I’m not going to say it right now because I haven’t done all my vocal warm-ups. I don’t want to do it, but it’s, ‘Mamma Mia.’ It’s, ‘Mamma Mia.’ And when you hear that original version of the character, it’s in Italian. It’s like, [high-pitched] ‘Mamma Mia.’ And I’m like, ‘Why does it make sense for a guy who’s from Brooklyn who doesn’t have that accent to use that so much?’ So it was always tough. They’re like, ‘It’s written as “Mamma Mia.”‘ But I’m like, if I’m expressing some reverence or some sense of, ‘Oh wow, Mamma Mia.’ But that’s not something necessarily a person says unless they’re doing the Italian accent. So it’s always really hard to find how ‘Mamma Mia’ works. I think that’s maybe why they slowed it down to take some of the stink off it because I’m not sure I ever fully got it right, but it’s like, ‘Maaammaaa Miaaaa.’”

It’s interesting to hear an actor like Pratt delve deep into something that is as seemingly simple as “Mamma Mia,” providing a peek behind the curtain of the world of voice acting. The actor is best known for his live-action roles, but that doesn’t mean he is a stranger to voice acting.

One of the more prominent examples before Mario was the mini-figure Emmet in Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s The Lego Movie, and more recently, as Garfield in the Garfield Movie. Now that Pratt has brought a more layered version of Mario that actually has speaking lines, it will be interesting to see how he interacts with other Nintendo characters down the line. With one of the character’s most well-known sayings changed for the film, there are sure to be other facets that are changed down the line.