Mumbai, Sep 18 (IANS) Britain-based filmmaker Jagmohan Mundhra says he roped in Mukul Dev to dub for Naseeruddin Shah in the Hindi version of “Shoot On Sight” after the veteran actor refused to do that. And he made sure that the younger artiste mimicked Naseer’s baritone to the minutest detail.
“Once Naseer made it clear that he wouldn’t dub for the Hindi version of my film, I began to search for a voice that would replicate Naseer’s speech patterns and intonations,” Mundhra told IANS.
“I was very clear that I wanted an actor to dub Naseer. Only then would the dubbing artiste understand what, how and why Naseer was trying to say what he was. That in place, I personally sat down with Mukul for the dubbing to make sure he got the nuances of Naseer’s voice right. In short, I made Mukul mimic Naseer down to every detail,” he said.
This was the only dubbing that Mundhra supervised personally. “I was with Mukul to dub all his lines.” Aly Khan dubbed for Mikaal Zulfiker, who plays Naseer’s nephew in the movie, Shobhini Singh dubbed for Greta Scachi, Maninee Dey for Laila Rouss and Tom Alter for Brian Cox.
“All the rest of the voices, including the other main characters like Mikaal Zulfiker, Greta Scachi, Laila Rouss and Brian Cox were supervised by this wonderful lady named Leela Ghosh who was recommended to me by Aparna Sen. Leela had supervised the dubbing of Aparna’s ‘Mr & Mrs Iyer’ in Hindi. But for Naseer’s voice I could take no chances.”
The results would be out when “Shoot On Sight” releases in October. “Mukul Dev sounds exactly like Naseer. But he is not Naseer. So what? I saw a Bengali film dubbed in Hindi called ‘Anuranan’ where the original hero Rahul Bose dubbed his own lines. How did that help the film? Finally, people go to see a film, not to hear who’s speaking, or not.”
About the accusation that the series of biopics that Mundhra made has not worked and he has therefore gone back to making B-grade, soft porn thrillers, Mundhra said: “B-grade thriller, soft porn, biopic maker – these are labels given to me by the media.
“I’m making the films I want to make. After I complete ‘Begunaah’ with Anuj Saxena and Udita Goswami, I go into a suspense thriller, ‘Room Mates’, where Raima Sen and Gul Panag play the title roles.” When told that Mukul Dev had dubbed his lines in “Shoot On Sight”, Naseer said: “I hope he enjoyed it. I would certainly not have!”
Naseer had earlier said that it was “a dumb idea to dub an English film into Hindi”.
— By Subhash K. Jha
