Leslie Swan

Leslie Swan is a Nintendo employee who served as the Senior Editor of Nintendo Power, voice actress, and Nintendo of America localization manager at Treehouse for numerous titles both within and outside the Mario franchise from 2000-2015. Contributing her voice to Princess Peach in Super Mario 64, Swan became the second actress to voice the princess in a video game (and the first in an official Nintendo game), after Jocelyn Benford. She was also the first voice actress to voice the WarioWare character Mona.

Mario voice actor Charles Martinet enjoys his voice acting sessions with Leslie and the Nintendo of America localization team. "Bill Trinen, Leslie Swan, and all those great guys, they have so many ideas [for voicing Mario], I come up with ideas, and of course there's the script to go off of. So we go to the script first, and then bounce some ideas and start playing…. We have this great playtime. It's really fun."

Super Mario 64
Prior to her involvement with Mario series video games, Leslie Swan served as the localization manager of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and as the Senior Editor of Nintendo Power. As her first direct contribution to the Mario series, she worked as the copywriter for Super Mario Adventures, a monthly comic included with Nintendo Power starting with the January 1992 issue and concluding with the January 1993 issue. Later, Swan penned the English script for Super Mario 64 in 1996 which would later be translated and used in all versions of the title. In addition, Nintendo EAD requested that she voice Princess Peach, which she did. She was asked to sound sweet, which she considered to be "a stretch." Leslie again voiced Princess Peach in the English version of Mario Kart 64 before giving up the role in 1998 to Asako Kozuki in Mario Party and later Jen Taylor in Mario Golf.

Return to Localization
In 2000, Leslie Swan continued to localize many Nintendo of America titles. Her first Mario series related title was Dr. Mario 64 in 2001. Shortly afterwards she worked as one of several localization managers of Animal Crossing which involved both translation and major changes and additions. Nintendo was impressed by the work of Leslie and her team. She worked on the localization for Luigi's Mansion later that year and in 2002, she served as localization manager for Wario World.

Voice Acting and Localization
For four years following the release of Wario World, Leslie Swan worked both as a localization manager and voice actress starting with WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! in 2003. Swan lent her voice to the character Mona, introduced in the title as both an employee of WarioWare, Inc. and as a potential love interest for Wario. It had been seven years since Leslie Swan had last voiced a character. Though the title would be the last of the WarioWare, Inc. series that she would localize, she continued to voice Mona with the release of WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$! and in 2004 with the releases of WarioWare: Twisted! and WarioWare: Touched!. Nintendo also released Super Mario 64 DS, a remake of Super Mario 64, in 2004. Several changes were made to Princess Peach's dialogue, so Swan took on the role once again for the first time in eight years.

Following these four titles, Leslie would not voice act again until 2006. Instead, she once again worked as a localization manager, overseeing the North American releases of Mario Golf: Advance Tour and Yoshi Topsy-Turvy in 2004 and Mario Kart DS and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time in 2005. She also managed the localization of New Super Mario Bros. in 2006 in addition to loaning her voice once more to Mona in WarioWare: Smooth Moves. In 2007, she returned to the role of Princess Peach in Super Paper Mario. In 2015, Swan resigned as localization director.