Mumbai — Actor John Abraham was earlier looked at skeptically for his feeble command over Hindi and many of his earlier films were dubbed by professional artists. But all that has changed now with the Bollywood heartthrob working hard to get rid of his so-called anglicised accent.
Said John: “I admit it was one of the areas that I needed to work doubly hard on. I’ve been consistently working on it. But ‘Baabul’ truly made me confident of the way I speak my dialogues. First of all, the words were all in pure Hindi. Achala Nagar’s dialogues were a bit complex for all of us, except of course Mr. Bachchan.
“I had two options open in front of me. Either I asked the words to be simplified. Or I worked on the language. I opted for the latter. And believe me, if the impact of a role can be gauged by the spoken word, then ‘Baabul’ is the most influential film of my life. It has changed my thought process. Now I’m actually able to think in Hindi.”
Nagar, who has written other socially relevant films like Raj Kapoor’s “Prem Rog” and B.R. Chopra’s “Nikaah”, was physically present on the sets of “Baabul” to make sure the words were correctly spoken.
“The way she narrated the script was in itself a work of beauty and a joy forever. I fell for the words hook line and sinker. I wanted to absorb her words and use them as though they were mine,” John remarked.
Post “Baabul”, producers are actually eager to let John speak in his own voice on screen.
Some actors who had their voices dubbed initially:
Amisha Patel (“Kaho Na… Pyar Hai”)
Rani Mukherjee (“Ghulam”)
Sridevi (had her voice dubbed in her first dozen films)
Dino Morea (“Raaz”, “Gunah”)
Bipasha Basu (“Ajnabee”, “Jism”, “Gunah”, “Phir Hera Pheri”)
Kunal Kapoor (“Meenaxi”)
Katrina Kaif (“Sarkar”, “Humko Deewana Kar Gaye”)
John Abraham (“Jism”, “Aetbaar”, “Paap”)