New Delhi,  September 10, 2026

Dubbing for another actor can be a demanding performance exercise, especially when the original performer has a highly recognisable voice and screen presence. Parvathy Thiruvothu discovered this while providing the Malayalam voice for Kareena Kapoor Khan’s character Ajooni Kohli in Daayra. In a recent interview, she explained how the experience required her to preserve the character’s emotions while also making the dubbed performance fit naturally with Kareena’s original acting.

Parvathy clarified that copying Kareena’s voice was never her objective. “The idea is to be true to the actor’s performance,” she said. She nevertheless acknowledged the challenge of working with Kareena’s distinctive presence. “Kareena has an extremely distinct and recognisable voice and screen presence,” she said. Some resemblance emerged on its own during the recording. “But without even trying, some of the English dialogues that I delivered were eerily similar to Kareena’s voice. I tried to mirror the decibels and intonations and then let everything else just fall into place.”

For Parvathy, one of the most demanding aspects was ensuring that the Malayalam dialogues worked seamlessly with the visuals. “The biggest challenge in all of that was controlling the mouth and the lip sync to make sure the other language doesn’t look too jarring. The beginning of the mouth movement and the ending of the mouth movement should look the same. The shape of the mouth should also look the same, which is a very strange element to keep focusing on while performing,” she explained. The process therefore required her to think about acting and precise mouth movements at the same time.

Parvathy also identified a specific emotional sequence as her biggest challenge. “There is a scene where Ajooni is listening to a person recount an incident. While doing so, she has to say a line that suggests that this is the end of questioning and her voice cracks in the most delicious way,” she shared. To understand the film and Ajooni more deeply, Parvathy had an extensive conversation with director Meghna Gulzar. “I spoke to Meghna at length about the movie and the character. She gave me a very nice introduction to why she made the movie the way she did.”

Parvathy’s experience underlines how dubbing involves far more than delivering translated dialogue. The voice, emotion, timing and physical performance all have to work together so that the new-language version feels natural without losing the original characterisation. Daayra, which also stars Prithviraj Sukumaran, is scheduled to release in theatres on September 18.