Seth Rogen will be starring as the iconic game character known as Donkey Kong for Nintendo and Illumination’s upcoming animated movie The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a project that Rogen knew for a long time he wanted to be involved with.
When speaking with ScreenSlam about the upcoming project, Rogen spoke about his love for the original games based in the Super Mario Bros. universe, as he said “It was fun to be a part of the movie (…) I grew up with Mario brothers (…) I asked myself ‘if you saw this movie out in the world, would you be upset if you were not a part of it?’ and the answer was yes, I thought it would be something that I really would like”.
Rogen continued to talk about his character in the movie, Donkey Kong, telling ScreenSlam “as far as, you know, Donkey Kong specifically (…) there’s a lot of room for interpretation with that character, I don’t think he speaks in any version of – HE RAPS [LAUGHS] – but I don’t think he really speaks in the games, you know”.
As Donkey Kong doesn’t speak in most adaptations of the character, Rogen explained that his main goal was to just try and make the barrel-throwing gorilla as funny as possible, telling ScreenSlam “it was more about trying to come up with a funny character and that had a dynamic that worked well in a scene-to-scene basis with the other characters (…) that I tried to focus on and they really let me try, they really let me do that”.
Alongside Rogen’s Donkey Kong includes Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Mario’s brother Luigi, Jack Black as the villainous Bowser, The Walking Dead‘s Khary Payton as the Penguin King, original Mario voice actor Charles Martinet as Mario’s father, and many more talented cast members.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie releases in theatres on April 5, 2023.
Source: YouTube