Chris Pratt Is ‘Grateful’ For The Polarizing Reaction To His Casting As Mario

With less than a week until The Super Mario Bros. Movie hits theaters, the cast of the most anticipated video game adaptation since, well, the other anticipated video game adaptation that came out this year have been fulfilling their press tour obligations. Nothing has topped Jack Black in a Bowser costume on The Kelly Clarkson Show, but in an interview with Gizmodo, Chris Pratt discussed the backlash to his casting as Mario.

“Oh, I totally get it, man. There’s a passionate fan base and I’m one of the fans. I get it. Mostly, people don’t want something like this to get screwed up. They’re precious about it. They’re careful. And I’m grateful for that,” Pratt replied.

Charlie Day, the Luigi to Mario’s Pratt, thinks the reaction to his co-star’s casting is because of how much people love the games. “I think Super Mario Bros., really, when you think about what a video game does for people, it is a place to escape to,” he said. “So people would go, after maybe having a tough day at school or in your work life, whatever it is, you put on Super Mario Bros., you play for an hour and you just disappear into that land and that world. So in many ways, the game had taken care of people, I think, in a way that they don’t want the franchise messed up at all. So I think they’ll be really happy when they see the movie two, three, maybe four times in the theater.”

Two, three, maybe four is also how many times I tried playing Hotel Mario before giving up. They can’t all be Mario Odyssey.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie comes out on April 5.