Gaurav Dubey (MID-DAY; June 6, 2014)

Rajnikanth is apparently all set to lend his voice to the Tamil version of Transformers: Age of Extinction. Says a source, “ Rajnikanth, who is among the most celebrated stars in India, will voice the character of Optimus Prime in the Tamil version of the film. Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots in the film and who better than Rajnikanth to do the voiceover.”

The source adds that since Optimus Prime has always been a hit with fans of the Transformers franchise, the makers felt that Rajinikanth would be the right choice to do the voiceover for the character. The film is slated to release on June 27. When contacted, a spokesperson for Viacom 18 Motion Pictures said, “ We don’t comment on speculation.”

Other voiceovers
. Mahabharata (2013) marked the Big B’s debut as a voiceover artiste — ditto for several other members of the cast, including Ajay Devgn and Vidya Balan.
. In Planes (2013), one of the characters, a plane, was named Ishani and it was voiced by Priyanka Chopra. It was her debut as a voiceover artiste.
. Imran Khan and Sonakshi Sinha lent their voices to the Hindi version of Rio 2 (2014). They voiced the characters, Blu and Jewel, respectively.
. Shah Rukh Khan made his grand debut as a voiceover artiste in the Hindi version of The Incredibles (2004) but he hasn’t done so again.