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German Dubbing Voices
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HOLLYWOOD MOVIES IN GERMAN

If you have seen Finding Nemo, you may know that the voice of the regal blue tang fish Dory was provided by Ellen DeGeneres and Nemo’s orange clownfish father had the voice of Albert Brooks. But when Findet Nemo was released in German cinemas in November 2003, whose voices did German filmgoers hear?

Nemo 2  

Findet Nemo von Disney und Pixar
© Buena Vista/Disney/Pixar

Germany’s dubbing history
Germany has a long tradition of dubbing Hollywood and other non-German movies into German. There is an entire industry built around Synchronisation, or dubbing, for British, French, Spanish, or Hollywood feature films and television series. Many German voice actors (Synchronsprecher) are unknown to the general public except when they speak the parts of actors and stars in American and other movies. German moviegoers are used to hearing Sandra Bullock or Sean Connery speaking fluent German — with someone else’s voice.

In fact, except for a few superstars, the voice of a Hollywood actor or actress may sound different from one film to another! Even a fairly big star like Harvey Keitel had the German voice of Christian Bückner in Pulp Fiction (1994) but the voice of Joachim Kerzel in From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). To add to the confusion, in Jackie Brown, Christian Bückner was the voice for Robert DeNiro, so even huge stars may have different voices in different films. Since the death of Gert-Günther Hoffmann (1929-1997), the longtime German Synchronsprecher for Sean Connery, the Scottish actor has had five different German voices. Joachim Tennstedt alone has been the German voice of over two dozen Hollywood actors, including Billie Crystal, C3PO (Anthony Daniels), Kevin Costner, and Mel Gibson.

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Wallace & Elvis
The Hamburg actor Peter Kirchberger (1943- ) was once the lead singer for a German rock band in the 1970s and '80s. But from 1967 to 1969 he dubbed the voice of Elvis Presley in six of the “King’s” Hollywood films. (But not earlier films such as 1960’s G.I. Blues, the first Elvis picture released after his military service with the US Army in West Germany – with Rainer Brandt doing the voice of Elvis. - Also see Elvis Presley in Germany: 1958-1960 from The German Way.)

Peter Kirchberger  
Peter Kirchberger
PHOTO © Oetinger-audio-Archiv
 
In August 2011 Kirchberger was a featured guest at the annual “Elvis Presley Festival” in Friedberg and Bad Nauheim, Germany. The actor also played Elvis on the stage in 450 performances of the rock 'n' roll musical Only You in Hamburg (1996-1997, co-written and directed by Kirchberger). In the 1960s Kirchberger was the voice of Adam West in the popular Batman TV series. His film work also includes dubbing the German voice for John Candy in several of his movies and the animated character Wallace in Wallace & Gromit. For many years (until 2001) Kirchberger was the voice of Ernie on the German version of Sesame Street. He also does commercials and audio for children's books. (Hear his voice in this Gillette shaving gel radio ad.) His daughter Stephanie is also a voice actor for film and TV productions.

Well-known German movie stars rarely do voice work for foreign films. One exception is animated films (Trickfilme in German). For the German version of Finding Nemo, Disney wanted the voices of recognized German stars. For the German Ellen DeGeneres/Dory voice they selected the popular German actress and comedian Anke Engelke, best known for her work on German television (“Ladykracher” on Sat.1). Engelke – born in Montreal, Canada in 1965 – was also the German voice of Jane in Disney’s animated Tarzan (1999). She appeared in the 2000 German film Liebesluder

For the Albert Brooks-as-Marlin role in Nemo, Disney picked Christian Tramitz (1955- ), who starred in the German western comedy Der Schuh des Manitu (2001) and has appeared in many other German movies and TV shows. Tramitz has previous dubbing experience, including various voices for the German version of the “Alf” television series in the 1980s.

Often the German voice sounds similar to the original actor, but that is not always the case. I remember watching the old “Bonanza” TV series many years ago in Germany and being impressed by how close the German voice for Hoss was. But the first time I heard Humphrey Bogart in German (in The Caine Mutiny/Die Caine war ihr Schicksal), it was terrible. O.E. Hasse didn’t even come close to Bogart’s distinctive voice. I later discovered that over a dozen different people have done Bogart's German voice in various films, but it would be hard to find one that really matched. (Hasse, who died in 1978, also did the voices for Charles Laughton and Spencer Tracy.)

John Malkovich, Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne have all had the same German voice (of Joachim Tennstedt) in different films. James Belushi has had at least a dozen different German voices! Even Leonardo Dicaprio has had the voices of three different German voice actors: Kim Hasper, Simon Jäger and Gerrit Schmidt-Foss.

HOLLYWOOD STARS and THEIR GERMAN VOICE(S)

  • Antonio Banderas - Torsten Münchow, Bernd Vollbrecht
  • John Malkovich - Arne Elsholtz, Joachim Tennstedt
  • Will Smith - Leon Boden, Jan Odle
  • Keanu Reeves - Andreas Fröhlich, Jan Odle, Frank Schaf, Torsten Sense, Joachim Tennstedt
  • Laurence Fishburne - Ingo Albrecht, Leon Boden, Rainer Brandt, Tommi Piper, Joachim Tennstedt, Walter von Hauff

Female Voices
German female voices for Hollywood actresses include Bianca Krahl (Penelope Cruz, Jennifer Garner, Charlize Theron) and Sabine Jaeger (Drew Barrymore, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez). Joseline Gassen has been the voice of numerous actresses, including Bette Midler, Linda Hamilton, Sally Field, Ellen Barkin and Debra Winger. Even though Sandra Bullock has a German mother and speaks German, her German movie voice is usually spoken by Bettina Weiß (Weiss). But in The Net / Das Netz Bullock’s voice was rendered by Michaela Greuer.

Some German film viewers avoid the entire problem by listening to the original English soundtrack included on most DVDs and Blu-ray discs of Hollywood films. In larger German cities it is also possible to see movies in the original language (usually without subtitles) in a cinema.

Popular US TV series like “Bones” and “NCIS” are also dubbed into German by German actors. The series are often released as DVD sets in Germany, just like movies.

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