Lost In Translation
If you're a movie star, it doesn't even matter if you speak English. Some people just have the juice, and they'll pop on camera even if you can barely understand what they're saying.
There's also some actors who have such a brilliant command of accents that you'd never guess that English isn't their second language.
All of these famous actors had to learn English later in life. Some you definitely knew—but I bet there's a few you didn't!
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austrian)
Arnold Schwarzenegger grew up speaking Austrian, and if you pay close attention, you can still detect a hint of the accent in his speech even today. He actually moved to the United States when he was just 21 years old, even though he couldn't speak the language.
Maureen Keating, Wikimedia Commons
His Lines Were Dubbed Over
The Austrian Oak started booking roles almost immediately in LA—I mean, the man was built for the camera—but he hadn't managed to get a hang of English yet. Billed as Arnold Strong, he starred in Hercules in New York in 1970, and the producers ended up dubbing over all of his lines because his accent was completely unintelligible.
RAF Industries, Hercules in New York (1970)
He Immersed Himself
Schwarzenegger took English classes, obviously, but he also tried to immerse himself completely in American culture. He actively avoided women who spoke German to force himself to get better at English. He did eventually get the hang of it—although the accent never went away.
Evening Standard , Getty Images
Penelope Cruz (Spanish)
Penelope Cruz realized she wanted to be an actress when she was a teenager. She quickly found an agent, and starting booking roles in Spain while still a teenager. After her red-hot international breakout performance in Jamón, jamón, she moved to New York at 20 to start booking bigger roles.
There was just one thing...
Lolafilms, Jamón, Jamón (1992)
She Only Knew Two Phrases
Cruz admits that she dragged her feet on learning English early in her career, so that when she moved to the US, she only knew "How are you?" and "Thank you". She was still booking roles—but she just learned all of her lines phonetically without understanding what they meant.
Lolafilms, Jamón, Jamón (1992)
She Did The Work
After embarrassing herself on more than one occasion thanks to her shaky English—she notes a particularly scandalous advance she made at her hair dresser by accident—Cruz hired a personal tutor and immersed herself in the language, practising every day until she had perfected her English accent.
Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Ke Huy Quan (Vietnamese)
Ke Huy Quan's family were among the Vietnamese Boat People who fled the country as refugees in 1975. His family was split up for several years before finally reuniting in the US as part of the 1979 Refugee Admissions Program.
Quan's family was finally together—but now they were in a new country where they didn't speak the language.
He Hadn't Gotten It Yet
Quan's English was coming along by the time casting directors for Steven Spielberg came to his school, but he was still far from fluent. His personality clearly shone through though, and Quan was cast as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which he'd later describe as "one of the happiest times of my life".
Paramount, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Antonio Banderas (Spanish)
Antonio Banderas got his start in a small theatre in his hometown of Málaga, Spain. While there, he caught the eye of upcoming Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast him in his next movie.
Banderas would go on appear in seven of Almodóvar's movies in Spain—before he caught the eye of a certain American popstar...
David Shankbone, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Madonna Was Obsessed With Him
After Madonna got obsessed with Banderas during her Truth or Dare tour, she introduced him to Hollywood. He had a magnetism that she and Hollywood execs couldn't ignore. Not being able to speak English? There are ways around that...
Miramax, Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)
He Made The Right Sounds—Or Close Enough
Antonio Banderas was critically acclaimed in his first English-speaking film role, 1992's The Mambo Kings, even though he definitely didn't speak English and learned his lines phonetically. At that time, he knew three phrases in English: "Yes," "Of course," and "I can do that".
Canal+, The Mambo Kings (1992)
Salma Hayek (Spanish)
Salma Hayek grew up speaking Spanish in her native Mexico, and she starting booking roles in Spanish long before she knew how to speak any English.
She had dreams of international stardom, which was going to mean learning English—but she was going to face an uphill battle.
Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
She Has Dyslexia
Hayek was diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, so while she had visited the English-speaking world many times while growing, her English was limited to "shopping" and "eating".
She had watched English movies, so she figured learning the language would be a piece of cake—but soon after she arrived in LA when she was 25, she realized she was in trouble.
She Struggled To Learn
It's always easier to learn a language when you're young—something Salma Hayek learned the hard way. She worked hard, but she found English very difficult and for years she still spoke with an incredibly thick accent, something some directors would use to their advantage.
Marion Cotillard (French)
Marion Cotillard made her acting debut in France when she was just seven years old, and she worked for a decade exclusively in French, despite starting to take English lessons when she was 11.
Chamarasca, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
She Had A Strong Accent
Cotillard booked her first English-speaking role when she was 17, though maintaining her strong French accent for many years to come. So how did she finally shake the accent?
Cotillard credits director Michael Mann, who had her work with a dialect coach every day for four months for his movie Public Enemies, for getting her to finally nail the accent and grow fully comfortable in English-speaking roles.
nicogenin, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Olga Fonda (Russian)
The Vampire Diaries' Olga Fonda grew up speaking Russian in a well-to-do family in the USSR. She went to the US for the first time an exchange student when she was 14 years old, but she didn't speak any English at the time. The host family she stayed with helped teach her the language and introduced her to American culture.
Little did she realize, there were big things in store for her in West.
CBS, The Vampire Diaries (2009/17)
She Got Noticed
Fonda got the hang of English, and came back to the US to go to college. Then, while on vacation in Los Angeles, she was scouted by an agent. She maintained a noticeable accent to this point, but she started working with a language coach once she started booking roles.
Fleonh, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Jean Reno (Spanish, French, Arabic)
Born in Casablanca to Spanish parents, Jean Reno was actually born Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez. He learned Spanish from his parents, and Arabic and French from the Moroccan culture he grew up in. It must have given him a talent for tongues—and he was going to need it.
Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
He Already Knew French
Reno's family moved to France when he was 17, and he began to study acting in earnest. He changed his name to "Jean Reno" and started booking French roles, soon becoming a bonafide movie star working with frequent collaborator Luc Besson.
Ilan Costica, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
He Picked It Up Quick
Reno's star eventually grew bright enough that he started to gain international fame—which usually means booking English-speaking roles. When he arrived in Hollywood, he realized that nobody cared who he was and he was going to need to learn English fast.
He quickly found a language coach and added English to his quiver of languages. He speaks Italian, too, just for good measure.
Bela Lugosi (Romanian)
After fleeing his native Hungary, Bela Lugosi began working as an actor in Germany's Weimar Republic. In 1920, he emigrated to the United States despite not speaking the language. He tried hard to learn English, but he couldn't afford a fancy coach like a lot of actors.
So it didn't go very well.
Unknown Author, Wikimedia Commons
He Had A Very Thick Accent
Lugosi maintained a heavy, Eastern European accent, but that's the good thing about silent films: No one can hear what you sound like. When the Talkies came around, the accent became harder to ignore—until the role of a lifetime came around.
Producers Releasing Corporation, Wikimedia Commons
His Voice Is Dracula
Lugosi never shook his thick accent—but it worked great for his iconic performance as Count Dracula, even if he was still learning lines phonetically.
To this day, when most people think of Dracula's voice, it's really just Bela Lugosi's thick, Hungarian accent they're hearing.
"Internet Archive" - Dracula (1931), Wikimedia Commons
Jackie Chan (Cantonese)
Jackie Chan had a long and vibrant career in his native Hong Kong long before he ever thought of Hollywood. Even though he occasionally started working in the US in the early 80s, he still didn't know a word of English—and he quickly realized that learning the language wouldn't be easy.
He Could Say One Sentence
Chan's agents figured being immersed in English would help Chan pick it up, but he struggled tremendously, especially at first. It was so bad he couldn't even order food. All he could say was "Hello my name is Jackie Chan”.
He Worked Extremely Hard
Jackie Chan could never shake his iconic accent, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. At one point, he hired four different English teachers and worked for nine hours a day studying.
To this day, he considers English to be the hardest language to learn.
Gert Frobe (German)
Gert Frobe was the perfect choice to play supervillain Goldfinger in the 1964 Bond movie of the same name. He was so perfect for the part that it didn't even matter that he didn't speak a lick of English. They just had him deliver the lines phonetically. What could go wrong?
He Couldn't Do It
Frobe learned the lines phonetically—but it quickly became clear that it just wasn't going to work. They ended up dubbing over all of his lines but one. Luckily, it's been called one of the best dubbing jobs in the history of film and no one was any the wiser.
Eric Koch for Anefo, Wikimedia Commons
He Got To Do The Voice
Maybe Frobe was offended about having his voice performance almost completely cut out of Goldfinger—but what goes around comes around.
When it came time to dub the film into German, guess who got the call?
Eric Koch / Anefo, Wikimedia Commons
Mila Kunis (Russian)
There are some non-native English speaking actors who just never shake the accent. Mila Kunis is not one of them. When she first moved to the US from Ukraine when she was seven, she didn't speak any English at all.
Featureflash Photo Agency, Shutterstock
She Was Thrown In The Deep End
Despite only speaking Russian, Mila Kunis was immediately thrown into the deep end. As she put it, they arrived in New York on Wednesday, and were in school in Los Angeles on Friday morning.
Sound scary? Well, it was! Kunis remembers the experience being extremely traumatizing.
Lance Cpl. Johnny Merkley, Wikimedia Commons
She Blocked It Out
Kunis has said that she's completely blocked out the second grade, and that her mother told her she cried every day. Later, the first sentence of her college admissions essay was, "Imagine being blind and deaf at age seven".
But you can't deny it worked. She picked up English quickly, started booking roles within three years, and had no hint of an accent when she started starring on That 70s Show when she was just 14 years old (lying about her age to get the job).
Everett Collection, Shutterstock
Ana De Armas (Spanish)
Ana de Armas grew up in Cuba, very sheltered from the outside world. She didn't watch any TV or movies outside of "20 minutes of cartoons on Saturday and the Sunday movie matinee," none of them in English. But when she got a little older, friends showed her Hollywood movies—and she was hooked.
Eric Longden, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
She Wanted To Be An Actress
The movies captured de Armas's imagination, and she decided she wanted to be an actress when she was just 12 years old. She started practising her favorite monologues in front of the mirror—phonetically, of course, because she still didn't speak English.
Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
She Learned Like Everyone Else
After getting some Spanish-speaking roles, de Armas moved to the United States even though she didn't really speak English yet. According to her, she learned the same way everyone else who comes to the US learns English: "By watching Friends!"
Honorable Mention: Will Ferrell (English)
Believe it or not, but Will Ferrell does not speak Spanish. That didn't stop him from starring as the hero in the Spanish-language Casa de mi Padre and learning all of his lines phonetically. You can barely tell!
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