Late actor’s daughter complains as AI voice used in Stallone film

The family of the late actor known as the French voice of Sylvester Stallone has objected to a computerised effort to imitate him in the star’s latest film.

For five decades Alain Dorval dubbed the dialogue in Stallone’s Hollywood action movies, and he became something of a celebrity in his own right.

After his death last February aged 77, producers turned to a British artificial intellugence start-up to recreate his voice for Stallone’s latest film, Armor, which will be released on Amazon France in March.

Dorval’s daughter, Aurore Bergé, who is also France’s sex equality minister, has objected to the result, saying the quality of the AI fake was unacceptable. She denied earlier reports that she had approved it.

Bergé accused the film’s distributors of breaking an agreement that the cloned version of her father’s voice, created by the London-based company ElevenLabs, would not be used without her permission.

“I only gave my agreement for a trial,” she said on X. “An agreement strictly guaranteed that my mother and myself would give final authorisation before any use/publication. And that nothing could be done without our agreement.

“I discover … on X that this commitment is not being respected. I never approved such a broadcast. And my father would never have approved it as it is.”

According to last week’s announcement by ElevenLabs and the licensing company Lumiere Ventures, the project had the blessing of Dorval’s family.

A statement attributed to Bergé quoting her as saying: “We wanted to do something that honours my father’s craft and legacy. There is a main difference between artificially creating a new voice — and my dad was strongly opposed to that — and bringing back to life an actor whose voice is deeply anchored in our collective imagination.”

A trailer of Armor with the AI voiceover was then posted on social media, only to provoke a barrage of criticism.

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