The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2018 - 17

preparation and repetition, the day
still felt just as exhausting as any other
"proper" interpreting assignment.

Since the film was set in the 1930s, I
noticed there was a lot of smoking going
on in the room where your scene takes
place. Was that tough on your voice?
Ah, yes, I forgot to mention the
smoking! In keeping with the smokingroom feel of the scene, all the men
were encouraged to smoke. Fortunately,
none of the actors smoked in real life
and therefore weren't particularly
keen on the idea, which meant that a
smoke machine had to be employed.
So, while this was certainly more
pleasant than actual cigarette or cigar
fumes, I still left the set with a bit
of a sore throat that day. Fortunately,
I was working mainly as a translator
at the time and didn't have to launch
straight into another interpreting
assignment afterward!

As interpreters, we sometimes struggle to
make our voices heard and to get what we
need to guarantee a good performance,
be it decent audio, a comfortable chair,
or trying to prevent people from talking
over each other. In your fictional
interpreting situation, did you get the
impression that the client was open to
your needs and suggestions?
Very much so. From the start, the
director was really keen to involve us
on things like notepads (yes or no?),
seating arrangements (they changed
them according to our suggestions),
and even on what the interpreters
should be doing at the start of the
scene, when we are seen standing in
the background. It was clear that the
production team had already put a lot of
thought into it, but weren't shying away
from additional input to make
the interpreting scene as authentic
as possible.

Finally, would you play an interpreter in
the movies again?
It was a really exciting experience
and one for which I'm truly grateful.
I was also impressed (and admittedly

www.atanet.org

I think that being an interpreter
does partly come with some of
the same qualities that actors
must possess.
a little surprised!) by how nice,
down-to-earth, fun, and approachable
everyone was on the set, including
the director herself. While I don't
fancy myself as a particularly talented
actress (I never really went beyond
amateur dramatics), I think that being
an interpreter does partly come with
some of the same qualities that actors
must possess: sounding and looking
confident under pressure, being able
to improvise, and, most of all, rendering
someone else's words as convincingly
as if they were their own. So yeah, if
an agent were to beat down my door, I
would definitely consider working on
a film again.
NOTES
1
Reuer, Alexandra. "Linguists, Camera,
Action," ITI Bulletin (Institute of
Translation and Interpreting, November-
December 2016), 6.
2

Lodge, Guy, "Film Review: Stefan Zweig:
Farewell to Europe," Variety (October 29,
2016), http://bit.ly/Variety-Zweig.

Judy Jenner is a Spanish and
German business and legal
translator and a federally and
state-certified (California,
Nevada) Spanish court
interpreter. She has an MBA
in marketing and runs her boutique translation
and interpreting business, Twin Translations,
with her twin sister Dagmar. She was born in
Austria and grew up in Mexico City. A former inhouse translation department manager, she is
a past president of the Nevada Interpreters and
Translators Association. She writes the
blog Translation Times and is a frequent
conference speaker. She is the co-author of
The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The BusinessSchool Approach to Freelance Translation.
Contact: judy.jenner@twintranslations.com.

American Translators Association

http://www.bit.ly/Variety-Zweig http://utrgv.edu/tip http://www.atanet.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2018