Voice acting sounds simple until you actually try it. Parvathy Thiruvothu found that out firsthand while dubbing for Kareena Kapoor Khan’s character Ajooni Kohli in the Malayalam version of Daayra, and in a new interview, she got refreshingly honest about how tricky the process really was.
Speaking candidly, Parvathy revealed she never even tried to copy Kareena’s voice. “The idea is to be true to the actor’s performance,” she said, choosing to honour the emotional core of the character rather than mimic Kareena’s tone. That said, she admitted the actor’s screen presence made the job harder than expected. “Kareena has an extremely distinct and recognisable voice and screen presence,” she said.
Interestingly, she also noticed something unplanned happening along the way. “But without even trying, some of the English dialogues that I delivered were eerily similar to Kareena’s voice. I tried to mirror the decibels and intonations and then let everything else just fall into place.”
The technical side of dubbing turned out to be its own beast. “The biggest challenge in all of that was controlling the mouth and the lip sync to make sure the other language doesn’t look too jarring. The beginning of the mouth movement and the ending of the mouth movement should look the same. The shape of the mouth should also look the same, which is a very strange element to keep focusing on while performing,” she explained.
One particular scene stood out as the hardest to get right. “There is a scene where Ajooni is listening to a person recount an incident. While doing so, she has to say a line that suggests that this is the end of questioning and her voice cracks in the most delicious way,” Parvathy shared, calling it the most difficult moment to replicate authentically.
While she didn’t speak to Kareena directly, Parvathy did have a long conversation with director Meghna Gulzar. “I spoke to Meghna at length about the movie and the character. She gave me a very nice introduction to why she made the movie the way she did.”
Daayra, also starring Prithviraj Sukumaran, releases in theatres on September 18.
Also read: Pradhama Drishtya Kuttakkar Teaser: Parvathy Thiruvothu Turns Cop In A Gripping Murder Mystery
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