Bad Dubbing: A Plea for Diversity

I have a note to all actors organising the dubbing of American actors in France:

Everyone in America does not sound like Chuck Norris.

Please stop ascribing everyone with grimy voices that sound like worn out auto mechanics or Tom Waits after a night drinking.

Take this trailer from the new film about Brooklyn gangsters called THE DROP. Everyone sounds like they're talking in "movie". I have never heard anyone in my life talk this gruff, or in this register without a break. Yes: tough guys have high voices sometimes. Tough guys also take a break from smoking "gauloises". Character voices can embrace the whole range of the spectrum. Not just gruff and low. If you actually listen to James Gandolfini's voice in real life, it has shades of a high pitched edge to it that is totally lost in this dubbed version's quest to make him sound exactly like Sylvester Stallone.


There are few success stories in the world of dubbing. Harrison Ford, they got right. The people who dub "the Simpsons" ain't bad.
But really we are talking about a practice that should really be outlawed in the first place. So these are really back handed compliments.

Actors in France who have gruff voices: Come out of the wood work. Organize a cocktail party so I can over hear you speaking in
real life in these burly voices. I bet you don't, do you? I bet you only do it for the movies. And the question I have is: why? When the movies themselves are not even giving you these kind of cues....

Is a producer holding a gun to your head and telling you to make everyone sound like Johnny Hallyday the morning after? Maybe. In which case, I am sorry for you.

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