Charlie Day reveals all he knows about playing Luigi, which is nothing

One of the most interesting things about Charlie Day’s appearance on Wednesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live is the news that the It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia star is appearing in his first romantic comedy. It’s called I Want You Back, it opens on February 11 on Amazon Prime, and he costars alongside Jenny Slate, which is good news if you like watching two of the funniest people anywhere do funny things.

Day reminisced about those times in his long career where everything wasn’t so rosy, however, telling Kimmel about the time he was cut out of the Chris Rock/Anthony Hopkins action buddy comedy Bad Company (which is something that exists), back in the pre-Sunny days of 2002. (Apparently, Day just couldn’t nail his one-line role as “Stoner.”) He also revealed that he was similarly and summarily canned from what had been a lucrative voice-over gig as the voice of the Independent Film Channel back in the day.

To get that one, the younger Day had skipped out on his 8 Mile audition with his agent’s promise that the IFC gig would allow him to buy a house. And it did—right on the day Day showed up at IFC only to find out that his three years of employment there were over and the IFC brass had forgotten to tell him. Eh, it all worked out, as Day told Kimmel that his resulting panic was almost immediately assuaged by the news that Sunny had been picked up by FX, just in time to help him meet those first mortgage payments.

Nowadays, in addition to his newly-minted rom-com career and the just-concluded 15th season of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (where Day should be nominated for an Emmy if the show weren’t perennially ignored at awards time), Day is jumping on that sweet voice actor train (take that, IFC). As Day told Kimmel, he’s starring alongside Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, Anya Taylor-Joy, and others in the upcoming video game adaptation of Super Mario Bros. Not that Day has met any of his costars.

“They don’t tell Luigi anything,” Day lamented, revealing that he’s playing the perennial second banana plumber to Pratt’s apparently accent-less Mario. Again, not that Day can attest to that, since, as he told Kimmel, nobody involved in the as-yet-untitled project lets him see anything but his own lines. Now, nobody’s saying this animated version of a largely plotless video game about two plumbers trying to rescue a princess from giant turtle monsters isn’t worthy of the Star Wars/Woody Allen/MCU treatment when it comes to script security. And there’s no earthly way this Nintendo adaptation could be any worse than the live-action 1993 iteration. Still, though, here’s hoping that Untitled Illumination Entertainment Project (formerly: Untitled Super Mario Project) gives Day a little more to work with.