'Mowgli...' voice-over was challenging, liberating: Abhishek Bachchan

Actor Abhishek Bachchan on Sunday said voice-over for the Indianised version of English movie "Mowgli: The Legend of the Jungle" has been challenging and liberating.

Netflix India launched the Indian version trailer of "Mowgli..." in the presence of filmmaker director and actor Andy Serkis, along with original voice-over cast, Christian Bale, Freida Pinto and Rohan Chand, and Indian dubbing team, which includes Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Madhuri Dixit and Anil Kapoor.

Talking about voicing black-panther (Bagheera), Abhishek Bachchan said the whole experience was very challenging as well as liberating.

The "Manmarziyaan" actor said: "It was very challenging. For the first time in our films or industry, there isn't a huge element of your personality that you always bring through characters, which is probably not prevalent in the West. In Indian cinema, it is almost the prerequisite... What was liberating is that you got to be a new character entirely and you have to work within those boundaries."

Transition of language was equally challenging, said the "Dostana" actor, adding: "What was nice that I wasn't playing a human being, and keeping that in mind, keeping the way Andy Serkis has designed the characters, the way Christian Bale has performed it, and then try to Indianise it...that was very challenging.

"And also to fit linguistically, Hindi into English dialogue, was quiet tough. Both are completely different languages, with different tone and meter, so that was also challenging."

The Netflix version of Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" is darker and edgier than releases of its previous versions.

"Mowgli: The Legend of the Jungle" will release on December 7.

--IANS

iv/nir