Is it always the same guy who dubs Harrison Ford in France? Or Michael Douglas in Spanish? Do they get paid more for higher budget movies or do they get a set fee?
My guess is that whatever production company “ships” them overseas has it’s set of voice-over actors who do work. So all MGM movies might have the same set, and all Paramount another set. It would seem odd that a given actor always has the same voice actor.
For German, not always but very often. (Dubbing into German is almost invariably done by specialized companies in the German-speaking countries, who hire the voice actors, so it’s not depending on the US production company.)
On obits of German voice actors I often read something like “also worked as a screen actor, but best known as the German voice of …”.
People expect a certain kind of voice for a given actor, so if the voice actor has died (as Sean Connery’s main German voice did in 1997) or is otherwise unavailable the replacement would need to match the established German voice, not the original actor’s one.
There is a website (mainly covering the 1950s-1970s, it seems) where you can look up the German voice actor for a given screen actor’s movies in that period.
I seriously doubt it. It;s probably whoever the dubbing company has available, and depends on the money, too. I was surprised to learn that Paul Frees (the voice of Boris Badenov and Ludwig von Drake, among others) did voice-overs for Godzilla, rodan and other 1950s Japanese monster flicks. Even more surprising, George Takei did, as well. (he’s older than I realized. This was some of his earlies work). Some of the actprs were pretty famous, including the guy who played the leader in the even Samurai. He’s doubtless been in other dubbed movies, and I’ll bet Frees didn’t do him.
According to my American friend who lived in France for a year, there is a single voice actress who dubs Julia Roberts, one guy who does Harrison Ford, etc, etc. I’m sure it’s not a 100% thing, but it’s apparently enough that when a native francophone hears Julia Robert’s real voice for the first time, it’s shocking, since her face is so often associated with the voice actress’ voice.
It’s much the same with germanophones and John Wayne as his main German voice (Arnold Marquis) sounded more masculine than the original.
I have to mention this because, well, where else am I going to put it?
When were were in Germany, there was an adverisement for Star wars 4 ( y’know, the first one) to be on TV that week.
It showed the scene of when we first see Obi Wan lowering his hood and greeting Young Skywalker. He says, ’ Guten Tag" and I convulsed in laughter for a good few minutes with zee german relations looking at me like I was posessed.
Obi wan as a german.
I can only imagine how funny it would be with the spanish version.
I once asked a French friend what she thought of the Simpsons, and she replied that she didn’t like seeing the American version because the voices were wrong.
On Russian TV, it’s usually the same guy doing all the voices in a movie. If you’re lucky, there are two voice actors: a man to do all the male voices, and a woman to do all the female voices.
Sorry about the sidetrack,but,before Peter Sellers was a famous screen actor,he dubbed some Hollywood actors.He dubbed the Mexican bandit in The Treasure of Sierra Madre (We don’t need no stinkin’ badges) and Bogart in Beat the Devil.
Cite…The Rise and Fall of Peter Sellars.
Again,sorry about the sidetrack
Does her voice sound that far off from Robert’s? I was under the impression that voice actors often try to approximate the characteristic tones, inflections, and unique vocal quirks of the star.
I believe this is just an show biz legend but supposedly Jerry Lewis’ popularity in France had a lot to do with the actor who used to dub his voice into French. The story is that when the actor died and someone else started to do voice, Lewis’ films declined in popularity.
In Japan I am pretty sure that they keep the same voice actor doing the same Hollywood actor. And though I haven’t heard that many examples I am relatively sure that they go more for the image of the actor than for someone with a similar voice. So, for instance, Mel Gibson has this deep, ultra macho Japanese voice. Listening to it for a second I had to laugh.
Off the top of my head, Will Smith, Arnold Swarzenegger, Steven Seagal, Fran Dresher, Tommy Lee Jones and Nicolas Cage have their own voices dubbers in Mexico.
Similarly, some actors like Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek usually do their own voice overs.
In her defense, the French voices for The Simpsons are really good. In fact, you can say that about almost all French dub jobs - at least for TV series; for some reason they have a great dubbing voiceover industry (conversely, Italian dubs are horrible). You should see “Friends” in French - it sounds like Courtney Cox came in and redid all her lines in a native French accent.
Michael Chiklis was on Leno or Letterman a while back. The same Mexican guy did his voice for The Commish, Shield and Fantastic Four. They had met up and the guy was thrilled that Chiklis is staying busy.
If you want funny and ever get a chance, get yourself a copy of a Sesame Street CD ( any of them, I would suppose) as the voice of Oscar the Grouch sounds like some guy has been chain smoking for 50 years and gargles with glass.
This is a good place to mention this.
The only time I did go back to visit Central America, I saw that the Toy Story movies were advertised as starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen! Problem was that the movie was dubbed to Spanish! The only way they could do that (and I still think there was something not right with advertising it that way) was because the same Spanish or Mexican guy who does the dub is the same for Tom in other movies, and also for Tim.