Apr 1, 2026 8:17am PT

Glen Powell and Donald Glover Called ‘Super Mario Galaxy’ Studio Asking to Voice Fox McCloud and Yoshi: They Had ‘Passion About Being Involved With Nintendo’

Zack Sharf

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Zack Sharf

Digital News Director

ZSharf

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“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” delighted fans in the weeks leading up to release by dropping two casting bombshells: Donald Glover is voicing Yoshi and Glen Powell is voicing Fox McCloud. It turns out both actors pitched themselves for these roles, directly calling up Illumination after the $1.3 billion success of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”

“When we were working on the first movie, we began to get phone calls from actors,” Illumination boss Chris Meledandri told Forbes ahead of the sequel’s theatrical release. “They started communicating their enthusiasm. After the first movie was done, there were two phone calls that came from actors expressing incredible conviction and passion about being involved with Nintendo, and one of them was from Glen Powell. He explained that we had to understand how deeply he loved the character of Fox McCloud. His dream was one day to be part of a ‘Star Fox’ movie. I’m listening to this going, ‘He has no idea that Miyamoto-san and I are talking about Star Fox being in this new movie,’ and Glen is expressing this passion for this.”

Glen Powell and Donald Glover Called 'Super Mario Galaxy' Studio Asking to Voice Fox McCloud and Yoshi: They Had 'Passion About Being Involved With Nintendo'