John Leguizamo Wants To Know Why A Person Of Color Isn't Playing Mario

John Leguizamo is unhappy that a white man was cast as the voice of Mario in the upcoming animated movie.

The actor is coming from a place of love when he insists that he would have rather seen the famous video game character played by someone who is of color. The animated feature is directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and casted Chris Pratt as Mario and Charlie Day as Luigi, his brother.

In 1993, Mario was played by Bob Hoskins and Leguizamo states that his appearance was a “breakthrough” in 1993 as he is Latin and identifies as such and played a role of an immigrant character. Now he just sees it as “unfortunate”.

“The directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton fought really hard for me to be the lead because I was a Latin man, and [the studio] didn't want me to be the lead. They fought really hard, and it was such a breakthrough,” he insisted.

The Menu actor says that one of his biggest and most eye-opening gigs is Comic-Con. “A lot of people love the original. I did Comic-Con in New York and in Baltimore, and everyone's like, 'No, no, we love the old one, the original.' They're not feeling the new one. I'm not bitter. It's unfortunate.”

The trailer was shared by Pratt last month on social media, he wrote, “After playing the games for years as a kid (and adult) I'm excited to bring Mario to all of you! Enjoy!” immediately fans wanted to know what the voice was going to sound like.

That’s one of the biggest aspects of Mario and his crew, their fun voices. Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri made sure to release a statement to appease the masses.

“All I can tell you is the voice that he's doing for us and Mario is phenomenal. I can't wait for people to hear it.” As for the Italian accent, Meledandri tried to ease people’s wandering minds by pointing out that he was Italian and get’s it.

“Well, as an Italian American myself, I understand. You know, I understand the comments.” He points out the film will address the accent or no accent situation. “We cover it in the movie, so you'll see we definitely nod to that,” he claims. “That's not the tenor of the performance throughout the film.”

The fact that the accent issue will be addressed could be something that will make Leguizamo happy to hear but that being said, it just seems like he didn’t see the need for another movie. At least it isn’t another live-action movie.