I was a little anxious about dubbing for Appu (Puneeth Rajkumar) in James: Shivarajkumar

When Kannada cinema’s Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar passed away tragically in October last year, he was in the midst of winding up his next, the Chethan Kumar directed James. The actor had, apparently, completed the talkie portions, and only a couple of songs and post-production, including dubbing, was pending at the time.

Given the specialty of Puneeth’s voice, Chethan tried his best to salvage the audio captured during the making, but since they had not shot in sync sound and James is a major commercial film, there was just too much background noise that could not be eliminated. The filmmaker considered using mimicry artistes who could pull off the late actor’s voice, but he felt that would be disservice to the effort that Puneeth had put into this film. “They can get the voice right, but not the emotions,” Chethan had said.

What he then did was to request Puneeth’s elder brother and Century Star Shivarajkumar to do the needful. Albeit heartbreakingly emotional, Shivanna, as the actor is popularly known, agreed only after getting Chethan to try dubbing with mimicry artistes first. “When I finally came to the dubbing studio, I was quite anxious. I know that fans would want to not only see Appu (Puneeth Rajkumar’s petname) but hear him too. His voice was truly mesmerizing. Dubbing for another artiste is another ballgame altogether. I would never have the kind of nerves I had while dubbing for Appu, when I record for my own films. Appu had a very soothing voice, and getting that modulation is tough. I have tried, which was, no doubt, difficult. In fact, since I have also done a cameo in the film, I tried to change my voice accordingly, so as not to confuse audiences,” said the actor.