Decoder Ring

Why Do Actors Act Like They Can Sing?


Listen Later

When an actor opens their mouth to sing in a movie, chances are high that the voice you hear will be their own. Even in music biopics, movie stars without much singing experience regularly go to great lengths to impersonate the most beloved vocalists of our time. Why not simply play Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen’s actual recordings, the reasons why we care about them in the first place? When the world is full of beautiful singing voices, why force Pierce Brosnan to bray his way through Mamma Mia?

What you hear when an actor unhinges their jaw is a matter that Hollywood has been negotiating since the dawn of sound. So in this episode, we’ll learn about the “ghost singers” of classic Hollywood musicals, find out why they went extinct, and why today’s music biopics so often fudge the music. Then we leave Hollywood for Bollywood, where the rise of the celebrity “playback singer” shows what can happen when good singing is the highest priority.

In this episode, you’ll hear from Slate’s pop music critic Jack Hamilton; musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical; Stephen Cole, co-author of a memoir by the ghost singer Marni Nixon; Isaac Butler, longtime Slate contributor and scholar of American acting; and Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has written several books on Hindi cinema and curates Indian films for the UK’s Channel 4.

If you want to listen to any of the songs you heard in this episode in full, you can find them all on this Spotify playlist.

This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. 

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at [email protected] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.

Sources for This Episode

Basinger, Jeanine. The Movie Musical! Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.

Beaster-Jones, Jayson. Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Hindi Film Song, Oxford University Press, 2015.

Butler, Isaac. The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act, Bloomsbury, 2022.

Hamilton, Jack. “The Problem With Music Biopics Is Bigger Than Just the Cliches,” Slate, May 17, 2024. 

Kabir, Nasreen Munni. Lata Mangeshkar ...in Her Own Voice, Niyogi Books, 2009.

Nixon, Marni with Stephen Cole. I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story, Billboard Books, 2006.

Robbins, Allison. “‘Experimentations by Our Sound Department’: Playback Stars in 1930s Hollywood.” Star Turns in Hollywood Musicals, edited by Chabrol Marguerite and Toulza Pierre-Olivier, Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2017.

Srivastava, Sanjay. “Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans: The Idea of Lata Mangeshkar,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 39, no. 20, 2004.


Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Decoder RingBy Slate Podcasts

  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6
  • 4.6

4.6

2,006 ratings


More shows like Decoder Ring

View all
This American Life by This American Life

This American Life

91,088 Listeners

Radiolab by WNYC Studios

Radiolab

44,010 Listeners

99% Invisible by Roman Mars

99% Invisible

26,180 Listeners

Whistlestop: Presidential History and Trivia by Slate Podcasts

Whistlestop: Presidential History and Trivia

1,378 Listeners

Slate Money by Slate Podcasts

Slate Money

1,019 Listeners

Slate Debates by Slate Podcasts

Slate Debates

2,859 Listeners

Hang Up and Listen by Slate Podcasts

Hang Up and Listen

998 Listeners

Care and Feeding | Slate's parenting show by Slate Podcasts

Care and Feeding | Slate's parenting show

1,029 Listeners

The Sporkful by Dan Pashman

The Sporkful

3,946 Listeners

Slate News by Slate Podcasts

Slate News

5,647 Listeners

Sidedoor by Smithsonian Institution

Sidedoor

2,213 Listeners

Twenty Thousand Hertz by Dallas Taylor

Twenty Thousand Hertz

3,998 Listeners

Slate Culture by Slate Podcasts

Slate Culture

1,873 Listeners

Slate Health by Slate Podcasts

Slate Health

53 Listeners

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia by Slate Podcasts

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

2,067 Listeners

What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future by Slate Podcasts

What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future

239 Listeners

Slow Burn by Slate Podcasts

Slow Burn

23,926 Listeners

Endless Thread by WBUR

Endless Thread

2,669 Listeners

You're Wrong About by Sarah Marshall

You're Wrong About

21,867 Listeners

Slate Presents: One Year by Slate Podcasts

Slate Presents: One Year

1,287 Listeners

American Hysteria by chelsey weber-smith

American Hysteria

3,285 Listeners

Articles of Interest by Avery Trufelman

Articles of Interest

3,407 Listeners

One Year by Slate Podcasts

One Year

1,190 Listeners

Culture Gabfest by Slate Podcasts

Culture Gabfest

441 Listeners

Maintenance Phase by Aubrey Gordon & Michael Hobbes

Maintenance Phase

16,692 Listeners

Search Engine by PJ Vogt

Search Engine

4,465 Listeners

If Books Could Kill by Michael Hobbes & Peter Shamshiri

If Books Could Kill

9,117 Listeners

Hear Me Out by Slate Podcasts

Hear Me Out

60 Listeners

Well, Now by Slate Podcasts

Well, Now

48 Listeners

Navel Gazing by John Dickerson

Navel Gazing

97 Listeners

The Law According to Trump by Slate Podcasts

The Law According to Trump

5 Listeners

Standoff: What Happened at Ruby Ridge? by Slate Podcasts

Standoff: What Happened at Ruby Ridge?

134 Listeners

Hyperfixed by Hyperfixed & Radiotopia

Hyperfixed

681 Listeners

Slate's Audio Book Club by Slate Podcasts

Slate's Audio Book Club

0 Listeners