Voice artists deserve recognition and royalties for their work
The Hindi version of Pushpa 2 is breaking box office records, and Shreyas Talpade, the voice of Allu Arjun in the film, is overwhelmed with gratitude. “I feel overwhelmed and feel grateful for the amount of love that people have showered on me, where each person is saying that me and my voice is equally responsible towards the success, it really feels great,” he says.
As a dubbing artist, Talpade’s work often goes unnoticed, but he believes it’s time for a change. “I feel in India, we should also have a performance-based royalty system, wherein a certain part of the royalty should go to the association of voice artists,” he suggests.
Talpade emphasizes the importance of recognising the hard work that voice artists put into making a film successful. “The amount of work that these guys, every voice artist put in is tremendous. And most of the time their work is not credited, it goes unnoticed, even though they are a huge part of making the film successful,” says Shreyas.
He proposes that the royalty should go to the association of voice artists, which can then distribute it to the individuals involved in the project. “I feel somewhere the association should get some royalty, like how the music association has and singers association get a royalty. And then that association can give a part of that royalty to the people responsible for dubbing that particular film, not only one or two actors, but every person involved in that particular film and project. This happens in international countries. I wonder why it is not happening over here. It is high time that we have a performance-based royalty system, in which the royalty goes to the association of voice artists,” he signs off.