What’s common between Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif, Jacqueline Fernandez, Amisha Patel & Bipasha Basu ?
Of course apart from the fact that they all have been part of mainstream Hindi films, they share the same voice too!
Don’t believe me? Check these out and pay close attention to the voices:
Four actresses (and more I’m sure) but just ONE voice! I am actually puzzled as to why voice artists are the top kept secrets in Bollywood? Personally, I feel that a voice has a key factor in performance of every artiste. Not many in Bollywood talk about dubbed voices but it happens, quite regularly!
If you felt that all Bollywood actresses are blessed with naturally sweet voices, then meet voice artist Mona Ghosh Shetty –
Mona has been doing voice overs since she was a child. She has dubbed for TV commercials for popular brands. Armed with a MBA, this talented Bengali lady is also a singer and now runs a full-fledged dubbing company in Mumbai called Sound & Vision India. Mona has dubbed for leading heroines in Bollywood and beyond. She can speak in Hindi, Bengali, English and Marathi. She is versatile and is known for her capacity to change moods, styles and expressions effortlessly. She has lent her voice to Bipasha Basu, Rani Mukherji, Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Jacqueline Fernandez, Amisha Patel, Nargis Fakhri, Lisa Ray and many other actresses.
Mona has even dubbed the Hindi versions of foreign & animated films.
‘Nowadays we have to do the dubbing mostly for actors who are not comfortable with the language,’ Mona says. She added that sometimes, the directors of the films are dissatisfied with the lines spoken by some of the actresses. In some cases, the actresses themselves were unable to convey their lines properly due to health problems.
This is precisely why they engage voice artistes to dub the dialogues during post-production. Most actors are not trained in the art of dialogue-delivery. Therefore, filmmakers do not want to take a risk. They believe voice artistes can actually enhance the performance.
The only drawback is that a voice artiste rarely gets a mention anywhere. Instead, most of the time, their work is concealed and goes unnoticed. Well, I think some of these behind-the-scenes tidbits are really interesting and it’s high time we start recognizing such talented people in the industry who play a vital part in making a dialogue memorable. Remember the famous dialogue from JISM: “Yeh jism pyaar nahi janta, janta hai to sirf bhook, jism ki bhook” ? That’s one of Mona’s most popular lines!
Psst.. Did you also know that even Rekha dubbed for Sridevi in AAKHRI RAASTA? Apparently even Jaya Bachchan had dubbed for both Tina Munim Ambani and Poonam Dhillon in YEH WAADA RAHA.
I wouldn’t have guessed!
Xoxo
Ritwika
