He put the headphones on his ears and polished the replica. Former football defender Tomáš Ujfaluši tried an unconventional role. He became the voice actor for the film Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom. In it, he lent his voice to another football star – Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
In the film about the popular French pair of heroic Gauls, Ibrahimovic was cast by director Guillaume Canet, who chose the two-meter tough man for the role of Caesar’s bodyguard Antivir.
The director recognized the peculiar nature of the football megastar already during the first mutual contact on the phone.
“When we talked about the movie and who he should play, he said to me: But how can Caesar play Caesar’s bodyguard? Then I met him and realized how easy-going, funny and humble a guy he is,” Caneta is quoted by the Closermag website .fr.
The current AC Milan striker also had words of appreciation for the director. “He gave me a great opportunity, I thank him very much for that. It means a lot to me, during my time at PSG I raised French football to the world level. And that’s not exaggerated self-confidence, that’s just faith in my abilities,” commented the forty-one-year-old footballer .
When the Czech production hesitated about which voice to give him in the dubbing, they reached for another star of the football fields: Tomáš Ujfaluš, who met Ibrahimovic on the field as a rival.
“I think dubbing is much easier than defending him on the field, it was really much harder there,” smiled Ujfaluši.
As a stopper for Atlético Madrid, he guarded Ibrahimovic when the Swede played for Barcelona in the Spanish league.
Famous sports champions in Asterix and Obelix films are nothing new. In the film called Asterix and the Olympic Games, seven-time Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher, four-time NBA basketball winner Tony Parker or world and European football champion Zinédine Zidane appeared.
