Woody Allen Talks About Disdain for Dubbing After ‘To Rome, With Love’ Premier in Italy

Woody Allen’s new movie “To Rome, With Love” was inspired by, and is in part a tribute to, the old Italian films he used to watch as an up-and-coming artist. It’s fitting, then, that Allen decided to open his film in Rome–but to do so, he had to make a concession.

Allen is well known throughout Italy, but most Italians have never heard his real voice. While subtitles are generally accepted in America and other parts of the world, European countries have a disdain for using subtitles in films. Instead, movies that are released in Italy and other European regions have dubbed voice tracks–and Allen isn’t a very big fan of dubbing.

“I don’t like dubbing at all. Americans are not used to dubbing. We grew up without dubbing and so it’s always very, very strange to us and I am very much against it,” he said at a news conference following the premier of To Rome, With Love (via Reuters).

“Whenever I send my films out to European countries I always try to get the prints subtitled if I can but I’m met with resistance because the countries are just not used to subtitles,” he added.

Woody may not be a big fan of having his movies dubbed over, but he admits that a big part of his popularity in Italy was in no small part thanks to the man who dubbed him for years–he was Allen’s voice, as far as most of Italy was concerned.

“Now, having said this I would say that the man who dubbed me for years in Italy, now deceased, made me into a hero,” Allen continued. “It was his voice and everybody liked me. I don’t know for sure if they had heard my own voice they would have been that responsive to me.”

To Rome, With Love opens in theaters in the United States on June 22. You can heck out a trailer for the film below.

Source: Reuters