Something that immediately struck me when I was abroad in Spain this past fall was how much TV is incorporated into spanish culture. My host family had their TV on 24/7 and it was a key component to every meal. Another thing I also noted immediately was that not all the programming was necessarily originally in Spanish. In fact, a lot of my favorite movies from the US were frequently aired but I never stopped to consider what went into making Mean Girls spanish-audience friendly. I knew Lindsey Lohan did not have the spanish vocabulary (or vocal cords) to match what was coming out of the screen but when I brought up how different "Lindsey"'s voice sounded in Spanish, my host mom's response triggered something I had never considered. She explained to me that non-spanish native actors had specific spanish voice actors to dub their voice in every (or most) of their work to maintain continuity and to people in Spain, that was how Lindsey always sounded. I had always just assumed they hired people to dub movies on a project by project basis not an actor by actor one.
For example, Ricardo Tejedo does the voice dubbing for Johnny Depp in almost all of his movies, including Rango and Pirates of the Carribean. This means that for the spanish, they associate a completely different voice with Johnny Depp's face and I can only imagine the impact this has on their pop culture. Voice is such an important part of an actor, especially in animated movies and for it to be completely different across language borders just goes to show the multiculturalism in even something so purely American as hollywood.
You can see the difference in "Depp's" voice in English vs. Spanish below (Rango begins to speak at around 40 seconds into each video):
You can see the difference in "Depp's" voice in English vs. Spanish below (Rango begins to speak at around 40 seconds into each video):