Considerations in Selecting the Voice and Voice Actors in the Persian Dubbing of Foreign Films and TV Series

Dubbing is the dominant medium of broadcasting foreign audiovisual products in Iran. In addition, various Iranian streaming services and film-sharing websites use dubbed AV products to increase their audience and client base. Considering the vast audience of dubbed products in Iran, the necessity to conduct Persian-language and local culture-based research on dubbing is imperative. Therefore, the present exploratory study aimed to investigate the considerations in selecting the voice and voice actors in the Persian dubbing of foreign films and series. Accordingly, the views of seven professional dubbing directors and voice actors were collected through several sessions of in-depth interviews. The collected qualitative data were analyzed using grounded theory procedures. In the end, the obtained data were divided into four main categories of selection according to the character’s specifications and characterization, the actor’s physical features, the role, and the dubbing director’s experiential considerations. Furthermore, the practical strategies of dubbing directors in dealing with the issue of accents were explored. The first solution was neutralizing the accent, but in case the accent played an important role in the characterization or plot development, manipulating the grammar, shift in word choice, subtitling, and using pseudo-language were the compensating strategies to represent the accent verbally.