Anele reflects on her adr work for Black Panther

When I started out in acting, I had no idea that ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) was even a job in acting, I've always wanted to do voice-over work but had no idea that I would start out in ADR.

My first introduction to ADR was being booked for a couple of days on the Black Panther sound stage. This is also how I became SAG eligible (Screen Actor's Guild), I finally joined the union a year later. I was the only well versed Xhosa speaking person present and was honored to teach some of the other actors (most of whom were African, yay for representation) the right words to say and correct pronunciation. It was a lot of fun sharing my mother tongue with fellow colleagues, it made me so nostalgic for home. It was such an honor to hear my home language in a blockbuster like Black Panther, and to have been able to be a part of it in a small way was a huge surprise; and we also have John Kani to thank for that. John Kani played King T'Challa's (Black Panther's) father, he is  a South African actor from Port Elizabeth, my home city; he had a great influence in Xhosa becoming the language of Wakanda.

I was then invited to do ADR work for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Some other ADR work I've done has been for McGyver on CBS and The Hot Zone on the Discovery Channel. I most recently worked on Star Trek: Short Treks.

I've learned so much and I'm still learning about how to expand my horizons in the field of acting, by simply using my voice.

Anele Lundborg

Writer, Managing Director, CALM Collective