Glen Powell confirmed Friday morning that he is the voice of Fox McCloud in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and he did it in the most Glen Powell way imaginable.
Powell posted a video to Instagram in which he says nothing, instead walking through theater seats and past character posters before revealing himself dressed in the iconic Star Fox vest, accompanied by Mario music.
The caption was four simple words, “Born to Barrel Roll.”
Nintendo fans immediately recognized the reference, “Do a barrel roll” is the most famous line in Star Fox 64, a command issued by Fox’s wingman Peppy Hare during the 1997 Nintendo 64 game that became one of gaming’s most enduring memes.
The casting was confirmed by Variety, which noted the announcement came roughly 24 hours after Nintendo and Illumination confirmed the character’s appearance in the film through an official poster on the @supermariomovie social accounts.
The voice actor had been left conspicuously unannounced in that initial reveal. Now we know why, they were saving Powell’s announcement for a separate moment.
Why The Casting Of Glenn Powell Works
The fit between Powell and Fox McCloud is not subtle, and that appears to be entirely intentional. Fox McCloud is the leader of the Star Fox team: a hotshot space pilot, calm under pressure, confident to the edge of cocky, loyal to his squad when it matters.
Powell’s breakthrough role was playing Jake “Hangman” Seresin in Top Gun: Maverick, a hotshot pilot, confident to the edge of cocky, loyal to his squad when it matters.
The parallel is the kind of thing that writes its own marketing. Powell took to the skies in one of the biggest films of 2022, playing a character defined by aerial combat and swagger.
Fox McCloud has been doing the same thing in space since 1993. The casting does not require audiences to be familiar with Star Fox to understand who Glen Powell is in this movie, because Glen Powell has already played a version of that character in live action.
His recent credits extend the pattern. The Running Man in 2025 and How to Make a Killing in 2026 have kept him in the action-blockbuster lane.
He is, by most measures, one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood right now, and Nintendo and Illumination clearly wanted that energy for their first major crossover character.
This is not his first animated role, Powell voiced Bostick in Richard Linklater’s rotoscoped Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, a 2022 Netflix film that also, not incidentally, had a space theme.
But The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is a different scale entirely.
Who Is Fox McCloud?
For anyone who did not grow up playing Nintendo, some background. Fox McCloud is the central character of the Star Fox franchise, first introduced in the original Star Fox on the SNES in 1993.
He is the leader of the Star Fox team, a group of anthropomorphic animals, including his co-pilot Falco Lombardi and wingman Slippy Toad, who operate as mercenary fighter pilots fighting against the mad scientist Andross.
The franchise’s most celebrated entry, Star Fox 64, arrived on the Nintendo 64 in 1997 and is where the character became a cultural touchstone.
The game popularized the “Do a barrel roll” instruction and the “We’re counting on you, Fox” earnestness that defined the series’ tone.
Fox has been a playable character in every single Super Smash Bros. game since the original 1999 Nintendo 64 release.
He was one of the eight original fighters, alongside Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Samus, Kirby, Pikachu, and Jigglypuff, which gives him foundational status within Nintendo’s crossover mythology.
His co-pilot Falco Lombardi and the rival character Wolf O’Donnell were both added to later Smash Bros. rosters.
The Star Fox franchise itself has been largely dormant since Star Fox Zero on the Wii U in 2016, which received a mixed reception and was the last mainline entry in the series.
His appearance in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the character’s first role in any film and represents his most prominent cultural moment in roughly a decade.
What This Signals About The Movie
Fox McCloud’s inclusion in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is worth understanding in context. He is not a Mario character. He does not share a franchise with Princess Peach, Bowser, Yoshi, or Rosalina.
His connection to Mario runs through Super Smash Bros., the Nintendo crossover fighting game franchise that brings characters from across the company’s entire library into the same competitive arena.
That connection has been quietly threading through the movie’s marketing for weeks. A previous trailer included a shot of Pikmin, the plant-animal creatures associated with Captain Olimar, another Smash Bros. fighter from the Pikmin games.
There was also a glimpse of R.O.B., the real-life Nintendo Entertainment System toy accessory who became a fighter in later Smash Bros. games.
Fox McCloud now joins that group, each of them characters who exist in the Nintendo universe but whose primary shared space has always been the Smash Bros. roster.
Fox’s presence, combined with Powell’s star power, has intensified speculation that Nintendo and Illumination are deliberately laying groundwork for a Super Smash Bros. movie.
Sonic actor Ben Schwartz has already spoken publicly about the possibility.
The pieces being assembled in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, characters pulled from different Nintendo franchises with no narrative reason to share a Mario film other than their Smash Bros. membership, are becoming harder to read as coincidental.
Nintendo and Illumination have not confirmed any such project. They have not needed to.
The Full Cast Of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opens April 1, 2026. The returning cast from The Super Mario Bros. Movie includes Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, and Keegan-Michael Key as Toad.
New additions for the sequel include Donald Glover as Yoshi, Benny Safdie as Bowser Jr., Brie Larson as Rosalina, Issa Rae as Honey Queen, and Luis Guzmán as Wart.
Glen Powell as Fox McCloud is the latest confirmed addition. The original film made $1.36 billion at the global box office against a $100 million production budget.
Powell’s video caption closed with two emojis: a star and a fox. He knew exactly what he was doing.
