How Sheethal Shetty and ‘Benki’ director A.R. Shaan helped Sai Pallavi master the Kannada language for Gargi

Sai Pallavi's maiden foray into Kannada cinema has evoked tremendous curiosity among local audience. Although the film comes in the dubbed form, the fact that the actor has lent her own voice in Kannada (and other languages) has charmed everyone with many lauding Sai Pallavi’s efforts towards her craft. However, the dubbing process was far from being a breezy ride as a small-but-special team was dedicated to the cause which comprised of actor-director Sheethal Shetty, filmmaker A.R. Shaan, and others.

In a recent interview with a Kannada news channel, Sheethal Shetty revealed that the team went to great lengths to help the Kannada dubbed version sound as authentic as possible. The process first involved a thorough translation of the Tamil script to Kannada which was carried out astutely by A.R. Shaan and other team members of Shee Tales Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (Sheethal Shetty’s own production and dubbing venture). The translated script, written entirely in English for Sai Pallavi’s convenience, was then provided to her and the whole process is said to have taken more than five days.

“It wasn’t just for Sai Pallavi’s character but Gautham Ramachandran, the director of Gargi, was insistent on getting the dubbing voice and accent right for all the characters actors in the film. For this, we scouted many Kannada voice artists and offered the team close to five samples for each supporting character because at the end of it, it is the director’s vision for the film and we wanted to do our best as a team. We had also brought an amazing dubbing artist called Darshana on board who sounds exactly like Sai Pallavi and had even completed the entire process before we learned that the actress herself would be dubbing for her character. A memorable experience, to say the least,” said Sheethal Shetty in the interview.

The Window Seat director had taken to social media a few weeks ago to appreciate Sai Pallavi’s sincerity and efforts towards the whole process. “The process of teaching Sai Pallavi how to speak in Kannada, was like feeding every Kannada letter to a small kid. We are really thankful to you for coming to Sheetales and for learning the language without any hesitation, also for filling right emotions to each and every word. Now we are proud to say that you have become one among the Kannadigas. We wholeheartedly thank you,” wrote Sheethal Shetty in the post before thanking the director of Gargi, Rakshit Shetty, and her teammates A.R. Shaan and Sumukh Parasher.

A.R. Shaan is the son of Kannada film director A.R. Babu and is making his directorial debut with the upcoming film Benki, starring Anish and Sampada Hulivana. Many would know that 777 Charlie actor Rakshit Shetty is presenting Gargi in Kannada.