The best way to describe what it’s like to dub an actor on a show like Squid Game: Karaoke. An actor goes into a recording booth, where a monitor plays a scene. The scene is accompanied by a band of text on the screen featuring a character’s dialogue — written not in the language it was originally performed, but translated into the “target language” being dubbed. It’s the first time the actor has seen this dialogue… and just like that, it’s time to record.
Dubbing actor Greg Chun laughs when Consequence compares the process to what you might do drunk on a Friday night. It’s technically accurate, he says, “if somebody recorded your karaoke performance and then broadcast it to the entire world. There’s a little bit more pressure.” Chun would know, because you definitely heard his voice if you watched the English-language version of Squid Game — he provided the voice of protagonist Seong Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae.
As Netflix has become a global purveyor of TV shows and movies, the company has put a greater emphasis on making sure its programming can be enjoyed no matter where you live in the world, or what language you might be fluent in. Dubbing, the practice of replacing the original dialogue performed by an actor with a new dialogue track in a different language, has become a key part of that strategy, with some Netflix programs being translated into as many as 36 languages.
John DeMita, Senior Manager of English Dubbing Language for Netflix, feels that dubbing is valuable to the streamer because “We know that great stories come from everywhere, and we want them to reach everyone. So our goal is to offer a high-quality opportunity to experience a story in the way that suits the member’s preferences and needs: Whether that’s audio description for the visually impaired, or subtitles for those who prefer the subtitles or dubbing for markets that prefer that — or the combinations of those things.”
Dubbing, DeMita adds, is a unique kind of performance because “the dub should never call attention to itself. We want the audience to forget about the dub as quickly as possible and watch the show. It takes a very special kind of actor to do that, because it’s almost egoless, and you have to have this almost emotional connection to the actor on screen — whom you’ve never met.”
Early in his career, actor Matthew Yang King (who performs the English dialogue for Squid Game Season 2 star Choi Seung-hyun, aka T.O.P.) felt that dubbing was “a secondary craft” — until he walked into the booth one day to discover that his agent had booked him for a dubbing job. The experience totally changed his perspective, because not only did he discover that it was a “high level, active” process, but it exposed him to the great acting coming from other regions, and allowed him to study it in minute detail.
“Literally, after I got out of the booth, I called up my agent and I went, ‘I want every dub that you can possibly get me.’ Because for me, it’s paid acting class. It quantifiably improved my acting,” King says. T.O.P., he adds, is “one of my favorite actors that I’ve ever dubbed. I want to see him do like 200 more things, just because he’s so extraordinary.”
Dubbing has become a real priority for Netflix in recent years, a commitment that even extends to the on-screen closed captioning: In the past, if you were watching a dub of a show with the English subtitles on, you’d frequently hear lines of dialogue that didn’t match with the on-screen text — the caption would be phrased or translated in a different way from the audio version. But now, Netflix will switch to an entirely different set of subtitles if you’re listening to the dubbed version, which will align with the spoken English you hear.
Screenshots from Squid Game (Netflix)
