Think you know everything about Hollywood’s elite? Think again. Many A-listers have surprising skills beyond their on-screen talents, especially when it comes to languages. From red carpets to international film festivals, these global stars easily transition between English, French, Hebrew, Russian, and more, proving that glamour isn’t their only strong suit. Let’s take a closer look at 15 celebrities who speak multiple languages, and see just how they use their polyglot abilities in their everyday and professional lives.
Colin Firth
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Colin Firth is renowned for his compelling performances and also shows impressive language skills. He speaks Italian fluently, a talent he developed after falling in love with the language and its culture. Firth started learning Italian when he entered a relationship with his Italian wife, Livia Giuggioli, whom he married in 1997, and he is now fluent in the language, as reported by Simple Italy.
Firth often speaks Italian during interviews and is known for translating scripts himself when working abroad.
Jodie Foster
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Jodie Foster has been charming audiences since her childhood, but what really surprises many is her fluency in French.
Throughout the years, she has even given acceptance speeches in French. Foster attended the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, a French-language prep school, and graduated in 1980. As a teenager, she often stayed and worked in France, speaking French fluently, per Salon.
Tom Hiddleston
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Tom Hiddleston isn’t just the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s trickster, he’s also a language enthusiast.
Hiddleston speaks French and has been seen speaking it multiple times over the years, demonstrating clear conversational fluency, including signing autographs for fans on the streets of Paris, according to Lingalot.
Mila Kunis
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Moving from Ukraine to Los Angeles, Mila Kunis learned English after starting school, but she never forgot her roots.
In 1991, Kunis’s family emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States when she was seven and a half years old and spoke only Russian., as reported by celebrity.land.
Despite her success, Kunis, who initially didn’t speak any English upon arriving in the U.S., maintains her roots and often converses in Russian with her parents during visits.
Natalie Portman
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Natalie Portman impresses not just with her acting but also with her remarkable linguistic skills. She is an Israeli-American Jewish actress born in Jerusalem, Israel, and her first language was Hebrew, which she continues to speak fluently, per Jewish Virtual Library.
Leonardo DiCaprio
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Leonardo DiCaprio captivates audiences around the world and can greet them in their own languages, too.
DiCaprio’s mother was a German immigrant born in a bomb shelter during World War II, according to People. He intentionally decided to learn Italian because his father is German-Italian. Additionally, his German mother and frequent visits to his grandmother in Germany helped him become fluent in German.
Viggo Mortensen
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Viggo Mortensen‘s acting skills are complemented by his strong language abilities. Growing up bilingual in Spanish and English, he later actively learned Danish in his teenage years, which is his father’s native language, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Rita Ora
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Pop icon Rita Ora was born in Kosovo and raised in London, maintaining her connection to her roots by speaking Albanian. Despite some challenges in expressing herself after years abroad, she has not forgotten her mother tongue, which she learned from her parents and is still spoken at home.
Her family moved from Pristina to London when she was just one year old., per People. Ora frequently mentions her first language during interviews and in her music, enhancing her international appeal and adding a worldly touch to her artistic identity.
Timothée Chalamet
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French-American actor Timothée Chalamet effortlessly switches between French and English, an ability inherited from his French father. His father was a journalist for Le Parisien, a French newspaper, and later worked at the United Nations, according to Today.
Anya Taylor-Joy
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Anya Taylor-Joy impresses with her acting versatility and multilingual skills. Born in Miami, Florida, she lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, until age six, then moved to England with her family. She mentioned her multicultural background during her 2021 Saturday Night Live opening monologue, as reported by UNILAD.
Gwyneth Paltrow
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Gwyneth Paltrow‘s talent isn’t limited to acting, she also speaks Spanish fluently. As shown in a 2013 interview during the Iron Man 3 press junket.
Paltrow is fluent in Spanish. She mentioned that she first studied the language in high school in New York, then improved her skills by traveling to Spain as an exchange student at age 15, where she lived near Toledo with a host family, per We Are Mitú. She’s used her language skills in interviews and philanthropic work.
Sandra Bullock
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Sandra Bullock is renowned as the queen of rom-coms and is fluent in German, owing to her mother’s heritage. Her mother, Helga Mathilde Meyer, was a German opera singer and voice teacher. Helga’s influence on Sandra went beyond language, fostering a love for the arts and performance.
Charlize Theron
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Charlize Theron, a force on and off screen, grew up speaking Afrikaans in South Africa before mastering English.
She grew up speaking Afrikaans in South Africa and only became fluent in English after leaving the country, as reported by celebrity.land.
Bradley Cooper
MEGA
Bradley Cooper turned heads on the red carpet not just for his roles, but for his French.
Cooper first learned French in the late ’90s, studying at Georgetown University and subsequently spending six months on exchange in Aix-en-Provence, per International Business Times.
Cooper loves practicing during international press events, making him a favorite among French fans and journalists alike.
Mark Zuckerberg
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Tech entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg amazed many by showcasing his fluency in Mandarin during Q&A sessions and speeches. In a full Mandarin Q&A, he explained that he learned the language because many of his Chinese-American wife’s family members speak only Mandarin. He has studied Mandarin since 2010 and even answered questions in it at Tsinghua University in Beijing, according to NPR.
He learned the language to connect with his wife’s family and Chinese business partners, demonstrating his commitment to cross-cultural communication.
This story 15 Multilingual Celebrities Who Will Surprise You With Their Language Skills first appeared on InTouch Weekly. Follow InTouch Weekly on Yahoo so you don’t miss what’s coming next.
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