Who Narrated "The Buddha" on PBS?

April 7, 2010 7:13 PM

OK, I just watched "The Buddha" on PBS. The narration clearly was by a woman, yet everything I see on the web says Richard Gere was the narrator. The PBS site is down at the moment. Anyone know who that narrator was?
posted by justcorbly to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

My wife is watching right now, and we can both hear Richard Gere's voice coming from the TV.
posted by lukemeister at 7:30 PM on April 7, 2010

Were you listening to the DVS narration on the SAP? It can be surprisingly easy to turn on....
posted by mr_roboto at 7:35 PM on April 7, 2010

Seriously, I had it turned on for about a week earlier this year, and the whole time I could not figure out why this woman was narrating every single detail of every show on PBS.

Also, a bunch of the other channels were suddenly in Spanish, and some were just silent. It was the tricky, tricky SAP.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:38 PM on April 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm watching it right now: it's definitely Richard Gere narrating. Though Jane Hirshfield is speaking a lot, and often in voice over.
posted by meerkatty at 7:41 PM on April 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

mr_roboto,

I hope she's paid well. She sounds like the hardest working woman in show business.
posted by lukemeister at 7:46 PM on April 7, 2010

The woman narrator is Blair Brown. She is mentioned in the opening credits underneath Richard Gere's name.
posted by briank at 8:06 PM on April 7, 2010

briank: "The woman narrator is Blair Brown. She is mentioned in the opening credits underneath Richard Gere's name."

+1
I'm watching it with closed captioning on and it has a "Brown:" right before she speaks.
posted by Big_B at 9:29 PM on April 7, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks, Briank. I watched it on my local PBS station and missed the opening credits. I'll take everyone's word that Gere was there, too.
posted by justcorbly at 5:52 AM on April 8, 2010

Richard Gere was definitely the main narrator. However, when it switched into the animated stories of Buddha's life, there was a female narrator for those portions.
posted by dnash at 8:15 AM on April 8, 2010