Pierre Arditi (born December 1, 1944 in Paris) is a French actor and voice actor of Greek, Spanish and Belgian descent.
The son of artist Georges Arditi, he is one of the few mainstay names of French stage, cinema and television to also have been prolific in dubbing (though he's largely slowed down in that field since 1986). He's been a very frequent collaborator of the late director Alain Resnais.
About his voice work, he has dubbed, among others, Christopher Reeve five times (including three times as Superman), Christopher Walken three times and Master Shifu in all installments of Kung Fu Panda to this day. He also often narrates nature documentaries.
Selected acting roles:
- Rape of Love (1978) as Julien
- Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980) as Zambeaux
- Same Old Song (1997) as Claude Lalande
- Art (1998) as Yvan
- The Count of Monte Cristo (1998) as Gérard de Villefort
Selected French dubbing roles:
- The Twelve Chairs (1970) as Ostap Bender
- Trinity Is Still My Name (1972) as Trinity
- What Have You Done to Solange? (1972) as Enrico Rosseni
- American Graffiti (1973) as John Milner
- The Day of the Jackal (1973) as the Forger
- Saturday Night Fever (1977) as Joey
- Airport 1977 (1977) as Frank Powers
- CHiPs (1977-1979) as Franck "Ponch" Poncherello
- Gray Lady Down (1978) as Pete
- Straight Time (1978) as Mex Dembo
- Death on the Nile (1978) as James Ferguson
- Holocaust (1978) as Karl Weiss
- Dallas (1978-1979) as Cliff Barnes
- Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978) as Guy Algo
- The Lord of the Rings (1978) as Legolas
- Superman as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman
- Superman (1978; first dub)
- Superman II (1980)
- Superman III (1983)
- Dracula (1979) as Jonathan Harker
- The Muppet Movie (1979) as the sommelier
- Somewhere in Time (1980) as Richard Collier
- Kagemusha (1980) as Katsuyori Takeda
- Excalibur (1981) as King Arthur
- Chariots of Fire (1981) as Aubrey Montague
- Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981) as Damien Thorn
- Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) as Colonel John Lawrence
- Dempsey and Makepeace (1984-1986) as James Dempsey
- Amen (2002) as the Doctor
- Kung Fu Panda (2008-) as Master Shifu
- Kung Fu Panda (2008)
- Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)
- Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
- Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)
Tropes & Trivia about his career:
- Dueling Dubs: Superman: The Movie has been redubbed in 2001. Jean-Pierre Michaël replaced Arditi's voice as Clark/Superman in it.
- Money, Dear Boy: Being rather left-leaning politically and against a number of practices in the banking system, he was once asked why he starred in commercials... for banks, and he replied that it's his job to act and pretend, and that it paid quite well.
- Production Posse: He's frequently worked with director Alain Resnais and actress Sabine Azéma.
- Those Two Actors: Arditi and Sabine Azéma are only good friends in real life, but you'd be forgiven for thinking they're married. Alain Resnais paired them very often and they've been either husband and wife or lovers in at the very least ten films since 1983.