Dubbing artist Bhagyalakshmi accuses Mohanlal's Thudarum makers of replacing her voice with Shobana's without informing

Dubbing artist Bhagyalakshmi accuses Mohanlal's Thudarum makers of replacing her voice with Shobana's without informing

etnBhagyalakshmi said that she was approached by director Tharun Moorthy and the production team to dub for Shobana’s character throughout the film. “Everyone knows I dub in most of Shobana’s films, and people say my voice suits her best,” she said. “When I was called, I even asked why Shobana herself couldn’t do it, since she speaks Tamil well. But the director and writer said I should dub, so I did it.”

The film’s release was postponed, and when Bhagyalakshmi later called producer M. Ranjith to ask about the delay, she was shocked to learn that her voice had been replaced. “Ranjith told me there were some small corrections and then said, ‘I was wondering how to tell you this... your voice has been replaced. Shobana dubbed it,’” she said. “He told me Shobana had insisted that she would not attend promotions unless she dubbed her own role.”

While Bhagyalakshmi acknowledged that Shobana had every right to dub her own lines, she expressed disappointment over the lack of communication from the team. “After all the years I’ve dubbed for Shobana, she or the team could have just called to say she wanted to do it herself. That courtesy was not there,” she said.

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She also took issue with comments made by director Tharun Moorthy during the film’s promotions. “In the promotions, Tharun Moorthy said they had decided from the beginning that Shobana would dub her own role. That’s not true,” she stated. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, so I stayed silent until now.”

Thudarum, directed by Tharun Moorthy and written with K.R. Sunil, is an action thriller produced by M. Ranjith under Rejaputhra Visual Media. The film reunites Mohanlal and Shobana on screen after years, with a supporting cast including Prakash Varma, Thomas Mathew, Amritha Varshini, and Binu Pappu. Despite the controversy, Thudarum has become one of the highest-grossing Malayalam films of 2025, ranking third overall at the box office.