“As soon as we started learning languages, I found I had an affinity for it.”
Learning a second language takes time and dedication and it’s not a skill people usually stick with throughout their lives. That’s why it’s even more impressive when someone reveals that they not only can speak another language, but they speak more than two languages — and can do so fluently.
There are actually quite a few celebrities who can consider themselves polyglots, speaking English and several other languages with ease. While they don’t get to use their skills on the big screen often, it’s always entertaining when they surprise fans with their talent.
Find out which celebs are polyglots…
1. Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman was born in Israel so she grew up speaking both Hebrew and English. Since then, she’s picked up several more languages including French, Japanese, German, and Spanish. The multilingual actress says that she hasn’t had to learn new languages for her career but chooses to do so because “learning is beautiful.”
“I think the dedication and learning the technique is required,” she told America Reads Spanish. “Learning gives you an open mind. Knowing languages is a tool that helps in some situations where all you do is just, you don’t even think about it, you just keep moving forward.”
2. Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster speaks many languages, thanks to her unique schooling experience. The actress grew up attending Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles, a French-language school, helping her to become fluent. She’s since starred in French films and actually dubs her American movies in French. Jodie says she also learned Italian while she was studying at Yale — but joked that she speaks the language with a French accent. She also reportedly speaks Spanish and German.
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3. Tom Hiddleston
Tom Hiddleston is incredibly talented when it comes to languages. He says he found a love of language when he was in school and realized it was a subject he could fully grasp. He started taking French, Latin and Spanish and now speaks even more languages, including Italian. He’s also been known to share phrases in other languages during interviews including Russian, Korean, and Mandarin.
“It’s something that’s always fascinated me … I wasn’t particularly, in fact, at all gifted at mathematics or the sciences, but as soon as we started learning languages, I found I had an affinity for it. I understood it. I started learning French or taking Latin or Spanish. I just understood how the set up was,” Tom shared in an interview on In-Depth with Larry Flick.
4. Gwyneth Paltrow
Besides English, Gwyneth Paltrow can speak two other languages: Spanish and French. She picked up Spanish while she spent time in Spain as a teenager. Gwyneth even lived with a host family there and it was then that she fell in love with the country and the language. She now visits often and raised her children to also speak Spanish.
“When I was 15, I went to a small town outside Talavera de la Reina and I had the most wonderful experience. It really changed my life,” she shared in a Spanish interview, adding that Spain has become like “a second home” for her.
5. Jack Black
Jack Black can reportedly speak both Spanish and French. Back in 2012, Jack shared that he had taught himself Spanish as an adult, often practicing in front of the mirror to get words and pronunciation correct.
“First I tried to learn as much Spanish as I could, just to get my mouth used to making the shapes that Spanish makes … Certain words that I liked to latch onto that makes your mouth do different things like ‘mia colless.’ That’s my favorite day of the week sound. Wednesday. And I like the word ‘entonces,’” he told Study in Spain.
While he hasn’t spoken out about his talents with the French language, he may have picked it up as a teenager while his father was living in France.
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6. Diane Kruger
Diane Kruger was born in Germany so she grew up speaking German and learned Latin in school. She didn’t learn English until she was a teenager when she was spending time living in London. Then, when she moved to Paris to pursue modeling, she also learned French. Looking back on her career, Diane says knowing multiple languages has been vital in her work as an actress.
“I don’t think I would have had the career if I didn’t speak French, and making French films has really rescued my career,” Diane told The Laterals. “German is my mother tongue. So I’m passing that on to my daughter but it’s just the ease of being able to work and to live in different places without feeling completely disconnected, right? It’s like the world is your oyster. Although I do not know why, I studied Latin in school for eight years, so one of the things like Spanish should come easily but it really doesn’t for me. I understand more Italian than Spanish.”
7. Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh was born in Canada but her Korean parents made sure she knew their native language growing up. Then, while studying at the National Theatre School of Canada in Quebec, Sandra also picked up French. On top of that, she reportedly can also speak in Spanish.
She has shared that speaking many languages is important to her, as evidenced on her show The Chair. Reflecting on her on screen father speaking Korean and then teaching the language to her on screen daughter, she says she felt very fulfilled telling a story that represents so many cultures.
“It was very fulfilling, because I just thought, ‘This is a story I want to tell, where many of us have multiple things going on.’ To have the richness of having to speak another language other than English to our parents and then having to bridge from our parents to our children, and how satisfying that was. I felt I am making this for people who will understand this intimately,” Sandra told the LA Times.
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8. Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen spent his childhood in Argentina, where he learned to speak both Spanish and English. On top of that, his father was from Denmark so he decided to learn Danish when he was a teenager. When the family relocated to upstate New York, he picked up Canadian French. While filming Far From Men years later, he also learned the Algerian dialect of French as well as Arabic. Additionally, Viggo has a working knowledge of several other languages.
“I grew up bilingual, in Spanish and English, primarily, and also I would hear my father who was speaking Danish with his friends. So when I was a teenager, I made a conscious effort to learn Danish. Danish is a difficult language to learn, maybe more difficult than Arabic in a way,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
9. Lupita Nyong’o
Lupita Nyong’o grew up around the world so it only makes sense that she speaks a few languages. She was born in Mexico City to Kenyan parents and when she was just a little girl, the family returned to Africa. There she learned to speak English, Swahili and Luo. Then, as a teenager, she returned to Mexico to attend the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s Learning Centre for Foreigners where she learned Spanish. She even got the chance to show off her skills in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
“I was so excited about it,” she shared in EW’s Around the Table video. “It was just a straight gift. And I was very, very happy to do it… I’ve always wanted to work in Spanish and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that that opportunity would come in Black Panther.”
10. Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz was born in Spain and grew up speaking Spanish. It wasn’t until she landed her first American movie that she learned English. Looking back, she says she auditioned for The Hi-Lo Country by memorizing all the lines necessary for her tape but really didn’t know any conversational English. When director Stephen Frears came to meet her in Spain, he realized she wasn’t fluent but cast her anyway. She eventually learned the language — in addition to Italian and some French.
