John's Hindi gets the thumbs up

There was a time when John was looked at skeptically for his feeble command over the Hindi language. In fact some of John's earlier films were dubbed by professional dubbing artistes. All that has changed. John has been working ferociously towards getting rid of any remnant of an anglicized accent.

Confesses the hard-working actor, "I admit it was one of the areas that I needed to work doubly hard on. I've been consistently working on it. But Baabul has truly made me confident of the way I speak my dialogues. First of all, the words were very shuddh. Dr Achala Nagar's dialogues were a bit complex for all of us, expect of course Mr Bachchan.

I had two options open in front of me. Either I asked the words to be simplified. Or I worked on the language. I opted for the latter option. And believe me, if the impact of a role can be gauged by the spoken word, then Baabul is the most influential film of my life. It has changed my thought processes. Now I'm actually able to think in Hindi… come to think of it I didn't have to speak so much in any of my earlier films."

Dr Nagar who has written other socially relevant films including Raj Kapoor's Prem Rog and B.R. Chopra's Nikaah was physically present on the sets of Baabul to make sure that the words were correctly spoken.

"The way she narrated the script was in itself a work of beauty and a joy forever. I fell for the words hook line and sinker. I wanted to absorb her words and use them as though they were mine," says John.

Post-Baabul producers are actually eager to let John speak in his own voice on screen.

Actors who had their voices initially dubbed

• Amisha Patel Kaho Naa… Pyar Hai


• Rani Mukherjee Ghulam


• Dino Morea Raaz, Gunaah


• Bipasha Basu Ajnabee, Jism, Gunaah, Phir Hera Pheri


• Kunal Kapoor Meenaxi


• Katrina Kaif Sarkar, Humko Deewana Kar Gaye


• John Abraham Jism, Aetbaar, Paap