Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#28770
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Charles Martinet represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 35 years in, and Charles is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Charles Martinet appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Charles. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Aaron Horvath, David Fincher, Chris Columbus and others, Charles Martinet helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice) · The Game (1997) as Nicholas' Father · The Dead Pool (1988) as Police Station Reporter #1
Career snapshot
Ranked #28770 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
1988–2023
Career length
35 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Most frequent director
Aaron Horvath
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Aaron Horvath
Most common genre
Comedy
2 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.2
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.8
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
2020s
7.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Super Mario Bros. Movie — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Dead Pool.
Most productive era
1990s
2 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1980s | 1990s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.71 film | — |
| Action | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 7.71 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 5.71 film | 7.81 film |
| Crime | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | 5.71 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1988The Dead Pool
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Police Station Reporter #1.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2023The Super Mario Bros. Movie
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once. The current state of the argument, as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice).
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
4 of 4 films
as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
Directed by Aaron Horvath
as Nicholas' Father
Directed by David Fincher
as Arnie
Directed by Chris Columbus
as Police Station Reporter #1
Directed by Buddy Van Horn
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice) gives Charles Martinet a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Nicholas' Father
The Game (1997)
Performance score7.5
The Game asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nicholas' Father is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Arnie
Nine Months (1995)
Performance score6.5
Nine Months asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Arnie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Police Station Reporter #1
The Dead Pool (1988)
Performance score6.5
The Dead Pool asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Police Station Reporter #1 is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
Start here. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the clearest statement of what Charles Martinet does — accessible, 93 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Charles at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
The Dead Pool (1988)
A deliberate change of key after The Super Mario Bros. Movie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Nine Months (1995)
A deliberate change of key after The Dead Pool — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Game (1997)
A deliberate change of key after Nine Months — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Aaron Horvath
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
David Fincher
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The GameBuddy Van Horn
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Dead PoolChris Columbus
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nine MonthsSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Game
as Nicholas' Father
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Game
as Nicholas' Father
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Dead Pool
as Police Station Reporter #1
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Charles Martinet has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
35 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
2 catalogue titles in comedy, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Game
as Nicholas' Father
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Game
as Nicholas' Father
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Game
as Nicholas' Father
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Dead Pool
as Police Station Reporter #1
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
as Mario's Dad / Giuseppe (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Works with the same directors — David Fincher
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Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Richmond Arquette
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
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Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Have your say
Community
Which Charles Martinet performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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