There’s a precision to Shubman Gill’s batting. Even when he’s smashing sixes, there’s a pre-programmed quality to his hitting — almost like he’s doing exactly what’s necessary, nothing more, nothing less. A similar precision comes through as he speaks about dubbing in Hindi and Punjabi for the recently released film, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Like so many of his generation, Shubman fell in love with the Spider-Man character played by Tobey Maguire. “It’s the first superhero film I watched as a child. I think I saw its premiere on cable TV. I was already a fan of that poster… You know that iconic visual with those skyscrapers in Spider-Man’s large eyes?” he asks, his voice betraying a childlike excitement.
Gill didn’t have a Spider-Man costume though. “I don’t think I found something that fit…” he says. It didn’t stop him from imitating the superhero though. Most ordinary children would stop with trying to shoot cobwebs from the wrist, but Shubman remembers climbing on door frames and sometimes, even walls. His job as a voice artiste, of course, didn’t involve such physical challenges, but Gill points out it was hardly straightforward. “As a batsman, I’m clear in my objectives for every innings. Also, it helps that I have practised — and so, I feel no pressure on the cricket ground even if lakhs are watching. Here, nobody was watching me, and yet, it was difficult. Sometimes, I could recognise immediately after speaking a line that I didn’t quite sound right.” The big difference between cinema and cricket — as every cricketer will always point out — is that you get retakes in films. I ask if he wished sometimes that cricket had it too. Despite the apparent benefits, he isn’t tempted. “Cricket would be no fun. It’s exciting only because you don’t get a second chance.”
Gill, incidentally, is the first sportsperson from India to dub for a Hollywood film. “I was surprised when a friend brought this opportunity to me.” He had no qualms about accepting it though, as he felt it presented him with a new challenge, amplified further by it being an animated film. “The dialogues had to feel more animated than usual… I had to bring a childlike quality to my voice as well.”
The assignment has helped him recognise new parts of his personality. “I had to portray emotions I wasn’t exactly used to,” he says. Perhaps his advertisement experience came in handy? “A bit, yes,” he agrees. “But we rarely get melodramatic for an advertisement. The range of emotions you express for a film is incredible.” For a recent promotional video of the film, Gill posed like Spider-Man on top of a car, displaying showmanship we rarely see from him on a cricket ground. Perhaps he will act, some day? “Maybe, but I don’t think I’m skilled enough to be an actor, right now.”
His voice-acting is for an Indian SpiderMan called Pavitr Prabhakar, one of many Spider-Man characters in the film. Every time the multiverse idea has been explored in the Marvel universe, it has resulted in multiple versions of the same character realising their respective unique purpose, which usually leads to a reinforcement of their separate identities. For Gill, this realisation of selfworth happened when he represented the Under-16 side of Punjab and turned out to be the highest scorer of the tournament. “That’s when I knew I was on the right track. Prabhsimran, Prithvi, Arshdeep… All of us were in the same batch, and I realised that I had what it took to become a successful cricketer.”
Shubman and Spider-Man have one common quality, he points out: The ability to manage multiple responsibilities. “He’s a superhero, a school student, a boyfriend… At such a young age, he handles all these responsibilities. My life too demands that I manage several tasks at once, and I think I’m quite good at it.” Given that these polished responses to the media come from Gill a day after scoring a century to take his IPL team into the finals, it’s hard to disagree.