Francesco Vairano (born 11 January 1944) is an Italian actor and voice actor.
Biography
Born in Naples, Vairano began his career in the late 1960s working as a theatre actor. He also made appearances on television and worked for the radio industry. However, he is generally well known to the Italian public as a voice dubber. He is best known for providing the Italian voices of Severus Snape (portrayed by Alan Rickman) from the Harry Potter film franchise and Gollum (portrayed by Andy Serkis) from both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. He has also occasionally dubbed actors such as Robert Downey Jr., William Hurt, and Ian McDiarmid.[1]
In Vairano's animated roles, he is known for dubbing Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and various characters in The Muppets. Additionally, Vairano dubbed Moreno, the innkeeper (portrayed physically by Gigio Morra), in the English dub of Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio, as well as writing the English dialogue and supervising and directing the dubbing process.
In December 2016, Vairano announced that he would be semi-retiring from voice dubbing and would only make rare comebacks.[2]