Mexico’s Voice of Rocky Says an Impressionist Isn’t an Actor. I Play Rocky Opened With Imitandup as Young Stallone

I Play Rocky, the film about how Sylvester Stallone fought to star in his own script, is in Mexican cinemas, and its Latin American Spanish dub has started a fight of its own. Young Stallone is voiced by Tomás Galván, an impressionist known online as Imitandup. Víctor Hugo Aguilar, who voiced Rocky Balboa in the Mexican redub of the first five films, says an impressionist isn’t the same thing as an actor.

The film, called Yo soy Rocky in Latin America, is Peter Farrelly’s account of the young Stallone writing Rocky and refusing to sell it unless he could play the lead. Anthony Ippolito plays Stallone. Diamond Films is releasing it in the region, with Mexico first on 12 November and the rest of Latin America on 19 November, according to Emsavalles.

It’s a story about an actor nobody wanted to cast. That’s part of why the casting of its dub has hit a nerve.

The impressionist who got the part

Galván built his following on TikTok and YouTube by recreating famous voices, especially the Mexican dub voices of Marvel heroes. He has been moving into dubbing work for a while. Milenio lists his credits as Albert Taft in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Caius in Tron: Ares and the young Daniel LaRusso in Karate Kid: Legends.

Hear him: Tomás Galván, in Spanish, slips into the classic Mexican voice of Baloo from The Jungle Book at 0:57. Video: Mike Salazar, on YouTube

He told Emsavalles Radio that he was invited to a voice test without being told what the project was. Only when he reached the studio did he learn it was about Rocky, a character he admires. He tested several times alongside other actors, and about a week later he heard he had the role.

Emsavalles reports that he has four years of experience in dubbing and also works as a commercial announcer. He told the station the role was a big challenge because of the weight Stallone carries in film history.

Image: Podcastmadre, on YouTube

“Rocky Balboa doesn’t talk like that”

Aguilar is one of the best known voices in Mexican dubbing. El Financiero describes him as an actor, singer, lawyer and dubbing director, whose roles include Johnny Bravo, Hagrid in some of the Harry Potter films, and Rocky Balboa in the redub of the first five Rocky films.

He wanted this part. Weeks before Galván was announced, Aguilar posted a video asking his followers to back him, and said that Mauricio Lemán Saldívar, president of the Consejo Mundial de Doblaje, had contacted Diamond Films about it. “Rocky Balboa and I are the same thing,” he said, as quoted by Milenio. He also argued that the age of the character didn’t matter. “I still do the same voice from when I was young until now, when Stallone is 80,” he said.

When the dubbed trailer arrived, his reaction on 3 November was blunt, and much of it unprintable. The cleanest line was the first one: “To begin with, Rocky Balboa doesn’t talk like that.” He went after the dub’s direction too, and called for studies of which voices have served characters best, saying that a lovely story with a well made dub had been wrecked.

Not about losing the job, he says

As the film opened this week, Aguilar posted again on TikTok, and this time he spoke more about the industry than about himself. “I’m not worried about not having done it, that doesn’t worry me. What worries me is the situation that’s happening,” he said, in remarks Infobae reported.

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His argument is about training. “To play a character of Stallone’s caliber, even in a biopic, you have to know what you’re going to do,” he said. “And how will you know, being that? Well, by being a career actor.” He named another dubbing actor he thought should have been cast, Fernando Orozco, calling him a great actor who sings and can shape his voice however he wants. And he pointed to young actors fresh out of theater school who, he said, never even get a chance in a dubbing room.

He had a warning for Galván, too, who he said had once imitated his own voice. “Watch out with that, because there I really could sue you for impersonating me,” he said. Then he made a point of saying it wasn’t personal: “The only thing against you, and it’s not against you, is that it’s not the role for you.”

The same week as Wildwood’s redub

The timing is what turns one actor’s anger into a bigger story. The same Thursday that I Play Rocky opened in Mexico, a new Spanish dub of Laika’s Wildwood reached Mexican cinemas, recorded by professional dubbing actors after audiences complained about its original celebrity voices. Voice Over Herald covered which voices were replaced earlier this week.

El Financiero linked the two directly, saying Aguilar’s worry about the state of Mexican dubbing had a clear example in Wildwood. In both cases, the complaint is the same: a famous name or a viral talent getting a lead role over trained dubbing actors.

Galván’s case is different in one way that matters. He isn’t a television star dropping in for one film. He auditioned, he has four years of dubbing work behind him, and he works behind a microphone for a living. Aguilar’s point is that an impression and a performance aren’t the same skill, and a biopic needs the second one.

Image: Amazon MGM Studios

What happens next

Aguilar says the response to his videos has been mixed. “They’ve sent me good and bad messages on TikTok, but well, that doesn’t worry me,” he said. Galván’s own account so far is the Emsavalles interview, given before the film opened, where he spoke only about the challenge of the role.

The rest of Latin America hears the dub on 19 November. For audiences, the test is simple: does young Stallone sound like an actor playing a man, or an impression of a famous voice? For dubbing actors across the region, the louder question is who gets in the room to audition in the first place.

Sources: Infobae; El Financiero; Milenio; El Tiempo; Emsavalles. Quotations from Spanish sources are translated by Voice Over Herald. Images: Diamond Films; Amazon MGM Studios; Podcastmadre.

Lee este artículo en español: La voz mexicana de Rocky dice que un imitador no es un actor. Yo soy Rocky se estrenó con Imitandup como el joven Stallone

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