Podcast Episode 8: Joan Giammarco

Joan Giammarco is a dubbing director, versioning supervisor, and actor. Having worked both in front of and behind the microphone, she has a rare understanding of every stage of the localization and dubbing process.

She has worked on the international dubbed and subtitled versions for filmmakers such as Steven Soderbergh (all features since 2011), Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Ron Howard, Taylor Hackford, Curtis Hanson, and Sydney Pollack. For two years she was the director of localization for Paramount Pictures.

She speaks Italian, French, Spanish, and snippets of many other languages. Her English dubbing work has been nominated for both Entertainment Globalization’s HERMES and the Society of Voice Arts awards.

Joan’s IMDB: https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm0316104/credits/?ref_=nmovr

Joan’s website: joangiammarco.com

This podcast lasts 94 minutes.

(You can click the Transcript button on the top right, and there you can jump to specific spots in the program.)

• 0:00 Intro, how Larry and Joan met

• 1:30 Growing up in Canada

• 5:10 First work in film for Canadian power company

• 6:25 Arriving in Los Angeles: work as actor and writer

• 8:45 Start work on international versioning on Schindler’s List

• 11:45 How the versioning has changed over the years

• 20:33 Problems with refining translations to and from English

• 22:50 Translating idioms: I know my chickens

• 24:00 Key words and phrases/names document

• 27:00 Work at Paramount; Transformers

• 29:45 Approach to creating an M&E

• 31:45 Disagreements in translations and accents

• 37:40 Helping actors during dubbing

• 43:50 Work on The Life Ahead with Edoardo Ponti and Sophia Loren

• 50:00 Lektor “dubbed” versions

• 53:25 Translation and adaptation of dubbing scripts

• 56:20 Work with Ridley Scott

• 57:40 Re-do of E.T. dubbed version

• 58:40 Sydney Pollack

• 59:40 Recognition of dubbing with Hermes and SOVAS awards

• 1;010 Captions and audio description

• 1:03:30 AI in dubbing

• 1:06:00 The “rhythmo band” dubbing technique

• 1:08:35 Acting and directing in English dubbed versions today

• 1:12:15 Actors doing their own dubbed versions

• 1:15:00 The Godfather saga’s greatness and quotability

• 1:17:20 Violence and love

• 1:22:15 Oreste Baldini: Young Vito 1974, dubbing director today

• 1:22:45. Favorite lines

• 1:26:50. Michael V. Gazzo and Frankie Pentangeli

• 1:29:25 Other favorite lines, scenes

• 1:32:50 Joan’s breadth of experience

• 1:34:25 End

This podcast is © 2026 by Larry Blake. All rights reserved.