In an exclusive interview with senior most journalist Bharathi S Pradhan for Lehren Retro, Rajesh Khattar elaborates upon his 25 year glorious dubbing career in turn highlighting some of his famous dubbing work including Fahadh Faasil's Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat character from Pushpa 2, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man (Tony Stark) & Berlin's role in Money Heist. The versatile artist praises dynamic director Ram Gopal Varma for giving him credits for the 1st time, when the latter dubbed for Kichcha Sudeep in the Phoonk (film franchise). Khattar also presents his fair take on the remuneration scale of dubbing artists & shares his visionary thoughts relating to the usage of artificial intelligence in dubbing. Watch the full footage on Lehren. #rajeshkhattar #pushpa2 #ironman #tonystark #fahadhfaasil #alluarjun #dubbingartist #moneyheist
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00:00Rajesh, pachis saal ho gaye, not as an actor but as a dubbing artist.
00:13I think I started in 99. First time I ever did. Pachis saal ho gaye, yes.
00:20As a dubbing artist?
00:21Pachis saal mein, agar kahoon to pehle 10-12 saal jo the, matlab ekdum gumnaami wale the,
00:31dubbing artist ke, kisi ko pata nahi rahta tha. Kisne kiya hai, kiski aawaz hai.
00:37In pe chupate the?
00:39Chupate the. Heroes to chupate the. Mujhe yaad hai pehli dafa jo hua,
00:47Ram Gopal Verma ne, title mein mera naam dala for the dubbing.
00:53Sudeep, actor hai, Khichha Sudeep. Unke saath unhone film manayi thi, Phook 1 and 2.
01:00Toh title mein, Sudeep, dubbed by Rajesh Khattar, unhone pehli baar dala tha.
01:05You know? Toh, lekin normally toh hero ho ya heroine ho, abhi dekhe main badi-badi heroines hai,
01:11Bollywood ki, jo beginning mein toh sabki aawaz, heroes ki aawaz.
01:15Even beginning, whether it's John, whether it's Dino, like everybody's voice were dubbed in the beginning and all.
01:21Toh yeh toh chupaya jaya tha. What I was trying to tell you, Bharti, very interesting thing is,
01:27ke pehle 10-12 saal jo hai na, wo gumnaami ka. Aur usmein mera kaaran karne ka yeh tha,
01:33ke mujhe toh bahot achha lag raha tha. Aur jo bhi paise milte the, aap parbha nahi karte the,
01:38ke aa rahe hain na. So, it was never a kind of a substantial part of my earning ever.
01:44You know? I mean, baaki cheezein karte hain aap, aap acting kar rahe hain, aap company chala rahe hain,
01:49waha se sab chal raha hai. Dubbing, you want to do that. Pichle 10 bharas mein,
01:54it has started picking up so, what do you say, I mean, so rapidly and so organically.
02:08Because jaise jaise kaam badta gaya aur jaise se Hindi audience dubbed filmon ki badti chali gayi.
02:15And the dubbing is not only confined to movies. There are series, there are animations,
02:21there are live action. Hazaro cheezein dub hoti hain. Toh wo jaise jab badta gaya,
02:27logon mein awareness create hoti gayi ki yeh aawaz. Aur curiosity aayi ki yeh aawaz kis ki hai.
02:34You know? And then they started discovering. And then they started having their favourites.
02:40And then it like, just it looked kind of boomed. And Iron Man is probably for me,
02:47what was sholay for Ramesh sir. Isse piece hai.
02:52Ab yeh 25 saal aur yeh jo especially last 10 saal aapne kaha ki bahut tez raftaar se chal rahi hai.
03:00I wanted to know what is your feeling about the remuneration given to dubbing artists especially of
03:09really big franchises and your contribution to it as a dubbing artist, you and other artists.
03:16And what do you feel about? See, I will tell you. If we calculate, if we calculate
03:24the amount of work I have done in dubbing and the volume of work I have done.
03:31I think I have done more than 400 plus movies and other work. I am barring jo series aati hain.
03:41Jaise Money Heist hai. Money Heist abhi kiya na. Berlin ka. Berlin ka kiya.
03:45So wo sab, wo to Berlin to ek hai. Mere, matlab baaki bahut se hain mere.
03:49Jo kiye hain. Unko agar aap chhod bhi rahein, sirf cinema ka, jo agar aap calculation karein na.
03:56Conservatively I think South ka, Hollywood ka mila karke, the revenue generated must be more than
04:06two and a half, three thousand crore. Right? Ab main yeh nahi keh raha hai ki main sirf
04:11akeda dubbing artist hoon se main. Main yeh keh raha hoon ki wo jo kaam dub hua hai aur
04:17main yeh dub version ka revenue keh raha hoon aap se. Keh matlab jo. Aap case in point
04:22500 crore ke kareeb Hindi version Pushpa ja rahe hain. Pushpa ja rahe hain. Toh Pushpa
04:27one bhi agar 2, 2.5 crore gayi the, 7, 7.5 crore toh yeh hi hogaya, aap samajh lijiye.
04:30Acha agar aap Iron Man calculate karein pehle se end tak mein, toh I think unka bahut easily
04:363,000 crore toh dub version ka ho jayega. Toh main 3,000 crore agar keh raha hoon toh
04:40kam hi keh raha hoon. You know, agar itna revenue generation ho chuka hai. Toh usme
04:45how can you negate the contribution of a dubbing artist? How can you? Right?
04:54Ab yaha pe problem yeh hai incidentally and fortunately ke chalan yeh hai ke aap yaha pe
04:59royalty system nahi hai. Abhi aap yeh dekh lijiye ke lyricists ko, singers ko.
05:04Composers. They had such a huge long struggle. Bahut, bahut lumpi. Bahut lumpi struggle
05:10and they were forces like Javed sahab and all. Matlab jino ne relentlessly kam kiya
05:15towards it so as to like bring it to a point jaha pe innon ko royalty milni shuru hoi.
05:21Toh I think voice artist mein toh bahut Delhi bahut door hai. Matlab ek toh abhi tuk toh
05:28koi coordination nahi hai. Ek koi aisa association nahi hai.
05:32Hai na voice artist association hai.
05:33Hai. Sab hai. Sab hai. I am not saying that. I am saying wo sab hai. Lekin they are not
05:38as forceful and not as strong as the other associations, the singer associations and
05:44the writer associations and all that when they were put together. Yaha pe aisa bhi nahi
05:49hai ke permanent voice ban jaate hain. Kyunki Dwayne Johns in The Rock, uski
05:53aawaz maine kai filmon mein dub ki. Phir suddenly beech mein kuch log aane lage.
05:57Unse unhone dub karwaya. Uske yeh bhi karte hain. Yeh bahut shuffling bhi hoti hain.
06:01Unless it becomes a franchise where people get like, they don't want to listen to any
06:05other voice. Toh ek red corner, ek film Netflix ne banayi. Jo Netflix pe release ki.
06:11Dwayne Johnson ke saath. It was a big cast. And then that voice, I,
06:22Dhapur Dwayne. And that broke Netflix record. Netflix ka apna, unka history se record
06:31toot gaya ke matlab like that film had so many this thing, eyeballs. And usme Hindi
06:39ka kitna contribution hai, woh toh Netflix koi pata hoga. You know like yeh kitna.
06:43So but like I mean it was vastly seen because it was a big star cast film which was
06:49premiered on Netflix. So these are the numbers which we are not even counting
06:54when I am talking about that. Like yeh toh kyunki theatrical nahi hai. Lekin ek artist ko
07:00uska abhi bhi jo aap keh rahe hain remuneration ki baat. It is not what
07:05evisibly the kind of numbers it is creating. But I believe the talks have started.
07:12The talks have been on. I think I would consider myself to be one of the front runners of it.
07:16Because like I have taken too much of a flak for it and there have been times that I have been
07:22replaced despite of the fact that people wanted to hear my voice on that particular character.
07:29You said something which was interesting the last time we met. You used a term whether we'll be the scapegoats or we'll be the pioneers.
07:39Yes. Toh go zarabar bhole. It's a nice line. So like I mean the way we are fighting for the entire thing.
07:48What is entire thing? About like I mean there should be a better remuneration or there should be a royalty.
07:54About for the artist. With AI coming in now. See I was thinking about it ki bahut jaldi ho jayega.
08:07Chaliye mein se kehta hu ki nahi agar jaldi bhi hua toh aur teen baras aur chaar baras.
08:12AI is going to take over the major chunk of dubbing artist work. There are lot of professions which are redundant now.
08:20Matlab for example web designing jo hai aaj kal ab koi karata nahi hai. You know I mean there are thousands of things which have been taken over.
08:26AI abhi aaj kal jo voicing hoti hai na documentary waghara ki jo voice overs hote hain.
08:32It's already been taken over by the AI. Because they don't need the human voice for that.
08:37Daal diya, feed kar diya aur wo toh visual ke saath chal raha hai, wo ho gaya.
08:41When you talk about the live action films, when you talk about the animation, where is the AI lagging?
08:47To finer emotions and the nuances which they are not able to bring in right.
08:53But then they are getting trained on a daily basis. And there will be a time probably they would be able to.
08:59I just was reading somewhere about that, I am bad with names, but the AI genius, I was just reading three days earlier in the newspaper.
09:08What he said was that AI will be able to do almost 85% of the job.
09:16You know, only 15% of the human contribution would be required.
09:23And that included voicing. So, as long as 15% is required or something.
09:30So, maybe there will be scenario where they would say, okay fine, Rajesh, we want to use your voice.
09:35Right? You don't have to come. All we need are the rights to use the voice.
09:40And just in case there are certain things which we cannot do, like it's not coming through, then probably we will get back to him.