On the last day of Napoli Comicon 2025, Francesco Vairano talks about his most memorable roles.
Francesco Vairano, historic voice actor and dubbing director, talked about the most iconic villains he voiced in a panel held in the auditorium of the Teatro Mediterraneo.
Snape:
“I really liked Snape ; I remember that after the first film they invited us to a demonstration, they applauded all the main characters but when I came out, the wrath of God happened.
I originally only had to organize the dubbing ; Snape wasn’t mine. For him, I thought of three of my colleagues. At a certain point, two gentlemen from Warner who hated each other said to me “why don’t you try it” and I refused ; they went on like that and for 5 days they told me “you try it because it’s slimy and ambiguous” … should this be a compliment? In the end, they were right.
I never wanted to read Rowling’s books before making the film ; I didn’t want to be induced into making the wrong choices. I didn’t know absolutely of Snape’s final twist, so I always tried to follow Alan Rickman as he was always very good. He wasn’t always the usual bad guy because he was consumed inside because Lily’s love had burned him when she preferred James; she left him empty, but the love never ended and because of this love, Severus secretly protects Harry”.
Gollum:
“I took care of the dialogues and Peter Jackson asked for an audition. Gollum in the first film is only seen from afar and screams like a madman. I did it because of the laziness of other colleagues.
In the second film, Gollum had a bigger part so I did the audition since Peter Jackson wanted to stick to the first film.
All the voice actors who auditioned were accepted except me, so I had to resort to a colleague younger than me and very good at doing the voices ; he almost choked. We made the trailer and sent the audition to Jackson ; we learned that the New Zealand production had lied. They swore that Serkis’ voice was original, but we realized that it had been edited by computer. They swore that it wasn’t so but then we edited my colleague’s voice and mine in that way ; about a month or a little more passed and they chose me. And so I started to do Gollum, desperately imitating Andy Serkis and I had so much fun. There is nothing more beautiful than working on characters with more strings”.
Palpatine:
“I originally had nothing to do with Star Wars; two colleagues of mine did it first. Suddenly, from America they asked to change the dubbing director and they asked for me because they had heard the Lord of the Rings. The director of the second was not happy about not doing the third and didn’t know that I would do it. When I said yes, Fox decided to respond to these attacks by saying “the director of the third episode will be Francesco Vairano” and he took it…
Originally, there were two actors: one played the senator and the other the emperor. I asked myself why? The actor of Palpatine must be only one and must bring out both sides. I proposed two actors but (the studios and the producers) from the US, they wanted me to try too, what do I have to say… I won”.
Ranking of the villains?
“In first place is Palpatine because Snape is embittered, resentful and wounded by love but not a real villain.
Gollum is an ordinary hobbit, reduced to that creature because of the ring.
They are all three interesting ; they were all ‘my children’.
The one who created the most vocal difficulties for me is Smeagol ; Peter Jackson thought I had too heavy a voice to do it, he ignored the finch that is in me.
The Harry Potter remake series? I will limit myself to saying that it is…nonsense. There is so much inclusiveness these days and it’s fine when it’s needed, but not in this random way! What’s the point of colored Snape?!
Will I dub in ‘The Hunt for Gollum’?
Who knows. We’ll see…”.
