A sensational piece of news rocked the world of TV series on 20 December: the web magazine Deadline announced that the reboot of the cult teen drama Beverly Hills 90210 is actually underway. Apparently, authors and actors are already working on it, and a TMZ photographer managed to shoot some pics of them between the several meetings. (Update via TvLine).
For us, 2019 already had a grand start, as Netflix announced it would once again air Gossip Girl as from 1 January 2019. Marco Guadagno directed the Italian dubbing of the teen drama, produced by the same network (The CW) that originally aired Beverly Hills 90210. Hence, we are now filled with trepidation as we are waiting for the details of this astounding piece of news. In the meantime, we asked Marco Guadagno to tell us something about his first experience with the series.
Marco Guadagno
«Beverly Hills 90210 dates back to 1990. Michele Franceschelli, who was Mediaset network director back then, gave me the series, telling me it was specifically intended for young people, and that he was particularly keen on it. I was sure it would be a success, because it was about rich people who had the same problems of common people. Plus, all the actors were beautiful, the music rocked, the houses were majestic. So it was a safe bet!
Anyway, when Michele asked me to proceed with the auditions for the main characters, as dubbing director I immediately put myself to work. I sent the selected dubbers to Milan to have the director listen to them and he was surprised that I didn’t include myself among the dubbers. He told me: ‘Come on, you’re famous, we all grew up hearing your voice. And the actors are all young, your voice could easily match someone…’ So, to make him happy, I sent him a sample of my voice dubbing Steve Sanders. He told be I should give it a try with Jason Priestley (Brandon). I hesitated at first, claiming that my voice could never match that actor, but he insisted… So I eventually sent him a sample, which I did with scarce conviction. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t go well. But Franceschelli was enthusiastic about it, he told me I was perfect for the role. We almost quarrelled over it, because he kept on insisting, but I thought it would be odd for me to direct the dubbing while also dubbing the lead character.
Beverly Hills 90210
But time proved him right… We dubbed almost 300 episodes, it was a very big job. Those years were fantastic, the actors dubbing the characters were all exceptionally good: Francesco Prando, Giorgia Lepore, Lorena Bertini, my sister Francesca Guadagno, Oreste Baldini, Giorgio Borghetti, and many more throughout the years. We sometimes used to work all together in the dubbing room (only in the last seasons did we dub using separate audio tracks), which made it great fun.
At a certain point, though, I had to hand over the helm, because the workload was just too much. I gave up directing the dubbing and focused solely on dubbing Brandon, with whom I used to make up some gags – metaphorically speaking. Because, in the series, he was a moralist, he was very judgmental, although in real life he absolutely is not. Anyway, in the dubbing room, I used to make cutting remarks whenever his moralistic side popped up… And now, I’m still dubbing Jason Priestley in Private Eyes, so ours is definitely a long-term relationship!
Marco Guadagno
Moreover, Lorena Bertini – who was my wife at the time – was dubbing Kelly. At home, our answering machine was bursting with messages (back then, everyone’s phone number was available in public phone books). One night we counted a record total of 120 messages, mainly people who wanted to talk with Brandon. Sometimes I actually answered the phone and shortly after they would ask me to pass Brandon to them. At a certain point all the girls started to hate Kelly, because of what she was doing in the series, so we started getting a whole lot of insults hurled at Lorena… that’s when we realised we had to delete our phone number from the book!
In any case, Beverly Hills 90210 went on to become a cornerstone series of the nineties. Other good series followed, such as Melrose Place, but BH90210 was unforgettable for many young people. And we can’t wait to start working on it again!»
