“Bass voice is now sought-after but back then not many preferred it. Priya Anand with her friends - actor Sonia Agarwal and actor Pooja Her big break, however, came in 2004 with Selvaraghavan’s 7G Rainbow Colony.
#SOUTH MOVIE HINDI DUBBED VOICE ACTOR SERIES#
Priya rose to become the dubbing director of the Madhavan starrer Amazon Prime series - Breathe. I was overwhelmed when I read that,” she reminisces. “In an interview, writer Sujatha had said that although he doesn't watch Tamil soaps on TV, he watches Mandira Bedi’s Shanti just for the ‘sweet voice of that unknown girl’. To this day, the biggest compliment she has received, which she considers to be an achievement, remains a comment registered by writer Sujatha in Kalki magazine. When he went for recordings he used to take me along and that’s how my journey began," she recounts. “My father was a yesteryear actor who used to act along with MGR. Having first dubbed at the young age of five, Priya thanks father Mohan who introduced her to the world of recording. Priya Anand, on the other hand, was someone who challenged the notion of the soft-spoken, chirpy female lead. With her bass voice, she rattled the industry that was slowly introducing female leads with strong tonality. I always sit, two inches away from the mic, in a dark room,” she says. “Some people stand and move to emote while dubbing. If you were to keep reading from the paper, it’ll affect the quality of the output,” explains Savitha.Ī very shy person in real life, Savitha says she prefers the dark room with no-one inside while recording.
Even laughter differs from person to person. “When it comes to dubbing, there’s a lot of observation involved. Savitha Radhakrishnan felicitated by director Ameer at JFW event Having dubbed for over a thousand films for several actors including Jyothika, Simran, Hansika Motwani, Kajal Aggarwal, Amy Jackson, etc., Savitha remains one of the most adaptable and sought-after voices in the industry. While talking to her over the phone, several faces of her on-screen characters flashed before this writer's eyes: Simran from Priyamanavale, Laila from Pithamagan, Nayanthara from Boss Engira Bhaskaran, Meera Jasmin from Sandakozhi… before I could steer my attention to her words alone. People wondered how Aishwarya Rai spoke so fluently in Tamil,” laughs Savitha. “I gained a lot of attention only after director Shankar’s Jeans when I dubbed for Aishwarya Rai. However, when more north Indian actors started acting in Tamil and Telugu films, that’s when people realised that there should be someone else dubbing for them,” says Savitha. “Even back then, we had several voice artists dubbing for actors like Radha, Amala and Kushboo. The role of a voice artist was quite unknown among the audience during the eighties and the nineties. Today, there’s a union for dubbing artists called South Indian Cine, Television Artistes and Dubbing Artistes Union (SICTADAU) formed almost 30 years ago and is currently headed by KR Selvaraj. This perhaps laid the first stone for dubbing in the industry as we know it. AVM had done something no producer would dare to do after the release of a film.” Reels were recalled and new ones rushed to theatres in cars and trains. Pragati technicians worked round the clock to synchronise voice and lip. On hearing feedback that the singing of Rukmini lacked pep, Meiyappan made a bold move and roped in Periyanayaki to sing playback. “A revolution of sorts happened at this time. Sri Valli, a folk mythology, the favourite story of Tamils, hit the bull's eye.” AT Krishnaswamy wrote the dialogue to match the lip movements of the actors. Randor Guy writes in The Hindu, “A milestone was crossed in 1943 with the making of Harishchandra, dubbed from Kannada to Tamil. It was AV Meiyappan, the country’s most lauded pioneer in cinema, who set the earliest stage for dubbing. When the silent era progressed to the talkies, the need for actors to use their own voice became imminent.ĭuring the initial days, most actors spoke their own dialogues and many even sang their own songs - M K Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, K B Sundarambal were well known for their vocal prowess.