WE MIGHT regard numerous Englishspeaking actors as globally famous, but we rarely pause to note the fact that their voices tend not to travel quite so well as their faces and bodies. As the international market expands and more English language films are dubbed for foreign territories, the voices of even the best-known performers are likely to be unfamiliar to overseas fans. Once, it was customary to dub films only for the biggest European markets:

France, Italy, Germany and Spain.

Nowadays, dubbed versions go out to Russia, Thailand, Turkey, Japan and South America - and the expansion in animated cinema, which lends itself so readily to dubbing, has turned imaginative voice casting into an art form all its own. Indeed, the re-casting of cameo voice roles for the UK release of American films highlight the cultural gulfs that dubbing strives to address. Turns by Larry King and Joan Rivers in Shrek 2 were re-dubbed by Kate Thornton and Jonathan Ross for the UK version; and for Shark Tale, a cameo by Katie Couric (an American news anchor) was redone by some woman from GMTV, who was presumably deemed more significant to the eight-year-old demographic.

This desire to tweak voices for geographical specificity indicates how delicate the process of international voice casting must be. Meanwhile, the star casting of the likes of Mike Myers and Will Smith as voice artists in these bigbudget animations is English language specific: go and see the films overseas, and the American A-listers are nowhere to be heard.

It's highly peculiar, when you think about it. The most lauded performances, the most famously seductive voices are all experienced entirely differently abroad (except by linguists, and those purists who prefer to seek out subtitled versions). Woody Allen's neurotic whine? Dubbed. Scarlett Johansson's precociously sultry growl? Dubbed. Hugh Grant's bashful posh-boy stutter? Dubbed, by golly. And imagine all those bad accents that never grate on foreign ears. The French aren't troubled by Renee Zellweger's weird take on RP in the Bridget Jones films; all that work Johnny Depp did on his Cockney pirate vowels for Pirates of the Caribbean was wasted on German audiences; and Greek viewers never had to suffer all the mad Irish lilting in Alexander.

Similarly, Gwyneth Paltrow might have slaved her guts out to sound cut-glass perfect in Emma and Sliding Doors, but what did that matter to her Spanish fans? All they got of her performance was its physical manifestation - some Spanish woman did all the voice work. (This doesn't just apply to actors, either: a French acquaintance tells me that she was distraught upon hearing the f luting, girly real-life tones of David Beckham, having only ever heard him dubbed on the news. ) Local actors can therefore make a career of dubbing a particular star's voice - every territory needs its own Tom Cruise. Others might take on a number of stars' vocal duties. In Spain, Ricard Solans has the daunting task of dubbing Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Sylvester Stallone, while Rogelio Hernandez takes on Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman and Marlon Brando. It's a serious matter - when Woody Allen's

usual Spanish stand-in Miguel Angel Valdivieso died, there was a highprofile search for a replacement capable of satisfying fans' expectations. Other actors have been dubbed by numerous different foreign voices. Marlon Brando has had 10 Spanish doubles, for instance, and Sean Connery 12.

Dubbing is a particularly mysterious matter for Englishspeaking audiences, for the simple reason that we tend to prefer our foreign language films to be subtitled. Accustomed as we are to receiving culture in our mother tongue, we recoil from dialogue that doesn't fit the actors' mouths, associating it primarily with bad kung-fu movies. Not that subtitles are a panacea: the fact of having to read text at the bottom of the screen inevitably detracts from the action onscreen, and simple space issues mean that nuances of dialogue have to be sacrificed.

Anyone with even a working knowledge of a foreign language has had the experience of reading a subtitle that only broadly matches what's actually being said.

Film-makers are understandably wary. Alfred Hitchcock preferred dubbing, estimating that "10% of the film's impact will be lost in dubbing, and 30% in subtitling, since the titles distract you from the image." Jean-Pierre Jeunet was reportedly distressed at the loss of countless jokes from the English subtitled print of Amelie.

Most directors don't get involved with foreign dubs (though it's not that surprising to learn that control freak Stanley Kubrick took a close personal interest). Though there can be advantages - Alexander did far better in non-English language territories. All in all, it's surprising that the all-powerful major studios haven't got together and pushed for a revival of Esperanto.