MUMBAI: Sharad Kelkar is one of Bollywood's most well-known voices, recently talked about dubbing for South Indian movies and being recognized as Prabhas' voice in Hindi-dubbed South Indian films. The actor began voicing Prabhas in Baahubali, and Prashanth Neel's Salaar was his most recent collaboration with the Telugu actor.

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“I used to stammer since childhood. I used to stammer till I started acting. I never dreamt of becoming an actor, leave alone being a voice actor,” stated Sharad when reminded that, since he dubbed Prabhas in the Salaar and Baahubali movies, his voice has a different fan base. Additionally, he performed the Hindi dubbing for Prabhas in Adipurush.

Regarding dubbing for movies in South India, Sharad Kelkar stated, “In the south, I haven’t done much work in a very long time. I haven’t dubbed Hollywood films in a very long time, either. But the recognition I got for Prabhas’ films was big. I don’t think it has happened with anyone in the voicing industry. People have now started noticing the voice-over artistes, like people recognised Shreyas (Talpade) in Pushpa and Sachin Gole for Yash in KGF. So, I think after Baahubali, it is no more true that you don’t know the person who has dubbed, whose voice it is.”

Sharad wants movie posters and end credits to start mentioning voice actors, and he gives thanks to Baahubali for starting the trend. He states, “I would say that Baahubali brought about that change in the industry, and people started recognising and respecting the voice actors also. People knew me, but they also noticed that I am a voice actor. They started recognising my voice being used to dub these films, and other actors also started getting recognition. For that, I am very happy. You know, in Hollywood if you see any animation film, the headlines are that so and so actor has dubbed for so and so character. In India also, we should have that. I don’t know why it’s not happening yet. Maybe they don’t want to give voice actors their due, but they should.”

Sharad Kelkar said when questioned about how he overcame stammer, “When you stammer, nobody notices the voice. But once I overcame that issue, I started getting work. I realised that my breathing pattern was not correct that’s why I used to stammer. A lot of children and their parents ask me how I managed to overcome stammering, and I say this was my issue. It is like if I ask you to sprint for 100 meters and immediately say a few lines, you can’t do it because your breathing is not in your control. You’ll be breathing heavily. It was like that for me. Once I corrected my breathing, I stopped stammering. Then I started observing other actors as to how they speak so fluently and worked towards it. Once my stammering stopped, people started noticing my voice.”

“When it came to dubbing, I realised that I didn’t know the craft of dubbing. As an actor, there are times you can enhance your scene in dubbing. And, if you dub badly, you can ruin the scene too. So I went to Mona Shetty to learn dubbing, she said that I’ve got a good voice, but I’ll need to learn how to dub. And from there my dubbing journey started. I started with very small projects, and then Baahubali came. Then there was no looking back. Work kept flowing in,” he further added.

Disney Plus Hotstar's animated series The Legend of Hanuman, in which Sharad Kelkar voices Ravana, is his upcoming voicing work. The actor claims that he accepted the role in the program because of the script.

“I choose the show, seeing how it is written. It is all in the writing. Writing is such a difficult craft. I feel in India we should have writers’ names come in front, written in bold letters. That’s my big request to producers. Writers should get their dues. Sharad Devarajan and Jeevan Kang have written the show beautifully. When I do mythology stories, my first apprehension goes away if the writing is good. We first voice acted, and then the animation was created, so I got the liberty to explore Ravan. I wanted to break the cliche. I wanted people to feel some fascination for Ravan. I wanted viewers to be curious about how Ravan was, his interpersonal relationships with his family and his enemy. So, it is a great experience for an actor to dub for certain characters,” stated Sharad.

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Credit- The Indian Express