Voice actors describe what it’s like to dub Netflix’s “Money Heist” | United States

Money theft – known in spanish as La Casa de Papel – released its final episodes on December 3 and is one of Netflix’s most popular shows of all time. The new releases were the streamer’s most-watched content during the week of November 29 through December 5, with 190 million hours played in its first three days of airing, according to company data. Distributed in more than 190 countries, Money theft aroused unusual interest in a Spanish production. And in countries like France, Italy, and Brazil, viewers still prefer dubbing over captions, meaning the Spanish original now has several local accents.

Andrea Lavagnino is the Italian voice of “The Professor”. Admirer of the actor who plays the character, lvaro Morte, he prepares his interpretation by analyzing the face of the Spaniard. “A good voice actor looks at the eyes, not the mouth,” he tells EL PAÍS from Italy, a few hours after the last episodes of so called over there aired. La casa di carta. “Contrary to what non-experts may think, we use our own voice, trying to bring colors, nuances and emotions. When people ask me to do the Professor’s voice, I can only say, ‘This is it. It’s mine!’ We are not imitators, we are interpreters, ”he emphasizes.

For Sébastien Hébrant, the French-speaking teacher, the series gave dubbing actors excellent material to work on from its first episodes. “It was a pleasant surprise when we discovered it while recording in the studio. We were seduced by the subject, the production values ​​and the performances of the actors, ”he recalls during a call from Belgium. “My character has a lot of subtleties and it’s very interesting for the dubbing. He is an enigmatic man, he shows fragility and shyness, but at the same time he is the charismatic leader of the gang, capable of humor and seduction. I must have found this dichotomy in my performance and in my voice.

The official Money theft The YouTube channel, which has 1.74 million subscribers, revealed in April 2020 that one of the actors in the Spanish series had actually dubbed himself in several other languages. Croatian actor Luka Peroš, who plays “Marseille”, grew up in several countries due to his father’s work as a petrochemical engineer. After filming in Spanish, he voiced his own character in English, French, German, Italian and Portuguese.

A video of Croatian actor Luka Peroš, who plays “Marseille”, speaking in Spanish, English and Portuguese.

Carla Martelli expresses the enigmatic “Tokyo” for Brazilian viewers. “He’s a character with a story that you sympathize with from the start, which always makes the job easier,” says the voice actress. The challenge for Martelli was the dual role of Spanish actress Úrsula Corberó, who also narrates the series. “I preferred to record the narration first, because it has a different tone, rhythm and energy, then do the action scenes, which require more expression and vocal strength,” she explains. . She ended up feeling so close to Tokyo that she remembers spending 20 minutes crying at some of the scenes she had to dub. Martelli also speaks Spanish and has provided voiceovers in the language for several other productions.

Money theft is full of action sequences, but also contains lots of dialogue scenes for the characters. This sometimes discordant change complicates the work of Money theftthe voice actors of. “You have to make these sentences easy to understand and at the same time seduce the viewer,” comments Hebrant. In France, Belgium and Brazil, the series retains the original title in Spanish: La Casa de Papel or The House of Paper. In Germany it is called House of Geldes, or The House of Money.

Spanish adaptation

For an Italian like Lavagnino, dubbing a Spanish series is quite easy due to the close roots of both languages. This similarity, however, forces him to pay special attention to lip sync. “The more similar the original words are to Italian, the more you will notice a discrepancy,” he says. For his Belgian colleague, it’s a pleasure to dub content spoken in Spanish, even if the strong ‘r’ is a challenge when lip-syncing the French version. “Spanish isn’t the easiest language to dub, but it’s definitely a lot easier than Korean,” Hebrew commented wryly, referring to recent Netflix hits as Squid game, whose likes have joined his list of new projects.

In Spain, streaming platforms have become a double-edged sword for the dubbing industry, which currently has no agreement in place to defend the rights of its workers. These new entrants to the Spanish markets have increased employment opportunities in a country which still strongly favors dubbing on subtitles. However, the short deadlines required to release the Spanish versions at the same time as the episodes in their country of origin have made working conditions more precarious.

Something similar is happening in other countries, according to the voice artists. “The sector is faced with a market which devalues ​​the eclecticism of the individual in favor of homogeneity”, declares Lavagnino, who declares himself a great admirer of the revolutionary spirit of Money theft. “They try to make our craftsmanship something more like a factory assembly line,” he laments. Hebrant points out that despite Belgian regulations establishing the payment that voice actors must receive, the amount is much lower than in places like France. He received € 75 net per episode for voicing The Professor in Money theft. “Dubbing remains a side job to other projects as actors,” he laments.

Carla Martelli contrasts this with the highly esteemed voice to which voice actors are held in Brazil – by the public and the industry. “We professionals feel well paid and respected, even if everything [in the labor agreement] can be improved, ”she says,“ and there is always a bias against what we do. There are those who think that this undermines the original material.