Multilingual Talents

1. Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with ...

Bergman has acted in at least five different languages

1. Swedish Autumn Sonata 2. English Casablanca 3. French Elena and Her Men 4. Italian Europa '51 5. German Die vier Gesellen

2. Max von Sydow

Actor | Flash Gordon

Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow on April 10, 1929 in Lund, Skåne, Sweden, to a middle-class family. He was the son of Baroness Maria Margareta (Rappe), a teacher, and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and folklore professor. His surname traces back to his partial German ancestry.

...

von Sydow has acted in at least seven different languages

1. Swedish The Seventh Seal 2. English The Exorcist 3. French The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 4. Italian Sleepless 5. Spanish Intact 6. Danish Spion 503 7. German Truck Stop

3. Maria de Medeiros

Actress | Pulp Fiction

Maria de Medeiros is the oldest of three daughters by the pianist, maestro and composer António Vitorino D'Almeida and Maria Armanda Esteves. Her sisters are Inês de Medeiros, stage actress and film and stage director and Ana Medeiros, violinist, composer, and music teacher.

Studied at Lycée ...

de Medeiros has acted in at least six different languages

1. Portuguese April Captains 2. French I, Cesar 3. English Pulp Fiction 4. Spanish Huevos de oro 5. Italian Il resto di niente 6. German Jenseits der Brandung

4. Assumpta Serna

Actress | Red de libertad

Assumpta Serna was born in Barcelona, Spain. She studied Law but abandoned it for her real passion, acting. Her career has spanned over 227 films, 27 as a lead and 43 TV projects in over 20 countries. She has won more than thirty best actress awards throughout the world (Spain, France, Italy, USA, ...

Serna has acted in at least six different languages

1. Spanish Matador 2. Catalan Qui t'estima, Babel? 3. French La brute 4. English The Craft 5. Italian Rossini! Rossini! 6. Portuguese Balada da Praia dos Cães

5. Joaquim de Almeida

Actor | Fast Five

Joaquim de Almeida was born in Lisbon, Portugal. Son of two pharmacists and the sixth of eight kids, Joaquim showed signs at an early age that his future lay not in the family business. At the age of eighteen, after attending the theater course at the Lisbon Conservatory for two years, he left ...

de Almeida has acted in at least five different languages

1. Portuguese April Captains 2. Spanish Che: Part Two 3. English Desperado 4. French Break of Dawn 5. Italian Disamistade

6. Nastassja Kinski

Actress | Tess

Nastassja Kinski was born Nastassja Aglaia Nakszynski on January 24, 1961 in Berlin, Germany, the daughter of German actor Klaus Kinski. In 1976, she met director Roman Polanski, who urged her to study method acting with Lee Strasberg in the United States. Kinski starred in the Italian romantic ...

Kinski has acted in at least five different languages

1. German Frühlingssinfonie 2. French À ton image 3. English Paris, Texas 4. Italian La bionda 5. Russian Unizhennye i oskorblyonnye

7. Daniel Brühl

Actor | Rush

Daniel Brühl was born in Barcelona, Spain. His father was German TV director Hanno Brühl (1937-2010), who was born in São Paulo, Brazil. His Spanish mother was a teacher. He also has a brother and a sister, Oliver and Miriam. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Cologne, Germany, where he ...

Brühl has acted in at least five different languages

1. German Goodbye Lenin! 2. English Inglorious Basterds 3. Spanish A Tram in SP 4. Catalan Salvador (Puig Antich) 5. French And If We All Lived Together

8. Liv Ullmann

Actress | Viskningar och rop

Liv Ullmann's father was a Norwegian engineer who used to work abroad, so as a child she lived in Tokyo, Canada, New York and Oslo. In the mid-1950s she made her stage debut and in 1957 made her film debut. She really became successful, however, when she began to work for Swedish director Ingmar ...

Ullmann has acted in at least five different languages

1. Swedish Persona 2. Norwegian Ung flukt 3. English The Abdication 4. Italian Speriamo che sia femmina 5. Spanish The Girlfriend

9. Eddie Constantine

Actor | Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution

Iconic American-born singer and actor in international films since the 1950s. Born in L.A. to Russian immigrant parents, Constantine studied voice in Vienna. He returned to the US, where his singing career wavered and he found work as a film extra. Constantine first achieved fame in Paris, where he...

Constantine has acted in at least five different languages

1. English The Long Good Friday 2. French Alphaville 3. German The Third Generation 4. Italian Destination Fury 5. Spanish Residencia para espías

10. Max Ophüls

Director | La ronde

Director Max Ophüls was born Max Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Germany. He began his career as a stage actor and director in the golden twenties. He worked in cities such as Stuttgart, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Vienna, Frankfurt, Breslau and Berlin. In 1929 his son Marcel Ophüls was born in Frankfurt, ...

Ophüls has directed movies in at least five different languages

1. German Die verkaufte Braut 2. French Madame de... 3. Italian La signora di tutti 4. Dutch Komedie om geld 5. English Letter From an Unknown Woman

11. Peter Ustinov

Actor | Spartacus

Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions.

He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, ...

Ustinov has acted in at least four different languages

1. English Spartacus 2. French Lola Montès 3. German Deutschlandspiel 4. Italian I girovaghi

12. Franka Potente

Actress | Lola rennt

Franka Potente was born on 22 July 1974 in the German city of Münster, to Hildegard, a medical assistant, and Dieter Potente, a teacher, and raised in the nearby town of Dülmen. After her graduation in 1994, she went to the Otto-Falckenberg-Schule, a drama school in Munich, but soon broke off to ...

Potente has acted in at least four different languages

1. German Run Lola Run 2. English The Bourne Identity 3. French Une vie pour une autre 4. Spanish Che: Part Two

13. Elke Sommer

Actress | A Shot in the Dark

This gorgeous Teutonic temptress was one of Hollywood's most captivating imports of the 1960s. Blonde and beautiful, Berlin-born Elke Sommer, with her trademark pouty lips, high cheekbones and sky-high bouffant hairdos, proved irresistible to American audiences, whether adorned in lace or leather, ...

Sommer has acted in at least four different languages

1. German Ship of the Dead 2. Italian Baron Blood 3. French Sweet Ecstasy 4. English A Shot in the Dark

14. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

Actress | Jodhaa Akbar

Born into a traditional south Indian family, Aishwarya started modeling at a young age. This green-blue-eyed beauty appeared in advertisements for many prestigious firms; the ones that brought her into the limelight were the garden sari and the Pepsi ad. Crowned Miss India 1994 runner-up, she was a...

Bachchan has acted in at least four different languages

1. Hindi Straight from the Heart 2. Tamil Endhiran 3. English The Mistress of Spices 4. Bengali Choker Bali: A Passion Play

15. Bruno Ganz

Actor | Der Untergang

Bruno Ganz was an acclaimed Swiss actor who was a prominent figure in German language film and television for over fifty years. He is internationally renowned for portraying Adolf Hitler in the Academy Award-nominated film Downfall (2004).

Ganz was born in Zürich, to a Swiss mechanic father and a ...

Ganz has acted in at least four different languages

1. German Downfall 2. English Unknown 3. French Lady of the Camelias 4. Italian Bread and Tulips

16. Penélope Cruz

Actress | Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to ...

Cruz has acted in at least four different languages

1. Spanish Volver 2. English Blow 3. French Fanfan la tulipe 4. Italian La ribelle

17. Thekla Reuten

Actress | In Bruges

Thekla Reuten is an undeniable front-runner in the new century's wave of European actresses lauded on the international stage and screen. In the space of just three years, the Dutch actress was a prominent member of two Best Picture Oscar nominees in the Foreign Language Feature category. In the ...

Reuten has acted in at least four different languages

1. Dutch Twin Sisters 2. German Ceasefire 3. English Highlander: The Source 4. Italian Una bellezza che non lascia scampo

18. Takeshi Kaneshiro

Actor | Shi mian mai fu

The 1/2 Taiwanese and 1/2 Japanese Takeshi Kaneshiro may have started out as a puerile teen idol in the Chinese entertainment scene, but he's since become a proper film star in his own right. Whether by his own design or not, the boyishness that marked his first steps into showbiz has evolved into ...

Kaneshiro has acted in at least four different languages

1. Mandarin House of Flying Daggers 2. Cantonese Chen mo de gu niang 3. Japanese Returner 4. English Too Tired to Die

19. Victoria Silvstedt

Actress | Out Cold

Just shy of six feet tall with crystal blue eyes and flaxen blonde hair, this ambitious glamazon from a quiet town in the north of Sweden has dreams of acting after a few more years of modeling. Victoria has graced the pages of Playboy magazine as Miss December 1996, and has just been named the ...

Silvstedt has acted in at least four different languages

1. Swedish Naken 2. English Cruel Game 3. French Crazy Driving 4. Italian La mia vita a stelle e strisce

20. Asin Thottumkal

Actress | Ghajini

Asin was born in Cochin, Kerala, India in the Malayalam-speaking Thottumkal family which consists of her businessman dad, Joseph, and mom, Dr. Seline, who practices in Ernakulam. She attended Naval Public School in Cochin, and after obtaining her Matriculation, was enrolled in St. Theresa's Higher ...

Asin has acted in at least four different languages

1. Malayam Narendran Makan Jayakanthan Vaka 2. Hindi Ghajini 3. Telugu Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi 4. Tamil Ghajini

21. Féodor Atkine

Actor | Pauline à la plage

Féodor Atkine was born on February 27, 1948 in Paris, France. He is an actor, known for Pauline at the Beach (1983), Love and Death (1975) and Ronin (1998).

Atkine has acted in at least four different languages

1. Spanish High Heels 2. French Pauline at the Beach 3. English Love and Death 4. German The Party: Nature Morte

22. Connie Nielsen

Actress | Gladiator

Connie Nielsen is set to begin production on Ridley Scott's "Gladiator 2," where she will star alongside Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington, reprising her iconic role of 'Lucilla' from the Academy Award-winning film "Gladiator." She appears in Ava Duvernay's feature, "Origin," based on the book by ...

Nielsen has acted in at least four different languages

1. Danish Brothers 2. French Demonlover 3. English Gladiator 4. Italian Colletti bianchi

23. Valeria Golino

Actress | Rain Man

Valeria Golino is an Italian actress and film director. She is known to English-language audiences for her role in Rain Man, Big Top Pee-wee and the two Hot Shots! films, especially the olive-in-the-belly-button scene. The second child of an Italian germanist and a Greek painter, Valeria Golino ...

Golino has acted in at least four different languages

1. Italian Respiro 2. Greek Evagora's Vow 3. English Rain Man 4. French A Butterfly Kiss

24. Irina Björklund

Actress | Rauhantekijä

Irina, born 1973, is a Finnish film/TV/stage actress, as well as a recording singer, song writer and musician She spent her childhood in Sweden, France and Finland. She danced at the Finnish National Opera Ballet school during 5 years She studied at the Helsinki Theatre Academy 1993-96

She has spent...

Björklund has acted in at least four different languages

1. Finnish Ambush 2. Swedish Colorado Avenue 3. English The American 4. Russian Pervyy posle Boga

25. Christopher Lee

Actor | Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it ...

Lee has acted in at least four different languages

1. English The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 2. French Dracula and Son 3. German The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism 4. Italian Hercules in the Haunted World

26. Isabella Rossellini

Actress | Blue Velvet

Isabella Rossellini, the Italian actress and model who has made her home in America since 1979 and holds dual Italian and American citizenship, was born cinema royalty when she made her debut on June 18, 1952 in Rome. She is the daughter of two legends, three-time Oscar-winning Swedish-born actress ...

Rossellini has acted in at least three different langauges

1. English Blue Velvet 2. Italian Il cielo cade 3. French Gallant Ladies

27. Alain Delon

Actor | Le samouraï

Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon was born in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, France, to Édith (Arnold) and Fabien Delon. His father was of French and Corsican Italian descent, and his mother was of French and German ancestry. His parents divorced early on, and Delon had a stormy childhood, being ...

Delon has acted in at least four different languages

1. French Le cercle rouge 2. Italian Rocco and His Brothers 3. English Zorro 4. Russian Assassination Attempt

28. Monica Bellucci

Actress | Malèna

Monica Anna Maria Bellucci was born on September 30, 1964 in the Italian village of Città di Castello, Umbria, the only child of Brunella Briganti and Pasquale Bellucci. She originally pursued a career in the legal profession. While attending the University of Perugia, she modeled on the side to ...

Bellucci has acted in at least three different languages

1. Italian Malèna 2. French Irreversible 3. English Shoot 'Em Up

29. Vincent Cassel

Actor | Black Swan

Blue-eyed Vincent Cassel was born in Paris to a leading actor father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and a journalist mother, Sabine Litique. Often labeled as a tough guy because of his roles, eclectic choices and talent have made of him a star of European cinema. First in La haine (1995), the young actor, ...

Cassel has acted in at least three different languages

1. French La Haine 2. English Black Swan 3. Portuguese Adrift

30. Irène Jacob

Actress | La double vie de Véronique

This beautiful, dark-haired French actress made a hit with a supporting role in her first film, as the piano teacher in Louis Malle's "Au revoir, les enfants" (1987). Educated in London and Geneva, and a Paris resident since the age of 18, Jacob became a promising starlet with her Malle success and...

Jacob has acted in at least three different languages

1. French Three Colors: Red 2. Polish Enak 3. English Othello

31. Christoph Waltz

Actor | Django Unchained

Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He is known for his work with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, receiving acclaim for portraying SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained (2012). For each performance, he won...

Waltz has acted in at least three different languages

1. English Inglorious Basterds 2. French Quicker Than the Eye 3. German Gun-shy

32. Diane Kruger

Actress | Inglourious Basterds

Diane Kruger was born Diane Heidkrüger in Algermissen, near Hildesheim, Germany, to Maria-Theresa, a bank employee, and Hans-Heinrich Heidkrüger, a computer specialist. She studied ballet with the Royal Ballet in London before an injury ended her career. She returned to Germany and became a top ...

Kruger has acted in at least three different languages

1. French Anything for Her 2. English Inglourious Basterds 3. German Joyeux Noel

33. Delphine Seyrig

Actress | The Day of the Jackal

Delphine was born in Beirut on the 10th April 1932 into an intellectual Protestant family. Her Alsatian father, Henri Seyrig, was the director of the Archaeological Institute and later France's cultural attaché in New York during World War Two. Her Swiss mother, Hermine De Saussure, was an adept of...

Seyrig has acted in at least three different languages

1. French Last Year at Marienbad 2. English Daughters of Darkness 3. German Freak Orlando

34. Jodie Foster

Actress | The Silence of the Lambs

Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received ...

Foster has acted in at least three different languages

1. English Silence of the Lambs 2. French A Very Long Engagement 3. Italian Beach House

35. Peter Coyote

Actor | Bitter Moon

Peter Coyote was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA as Robert Peter Cohon to Ruth (Fidler) and Morris Cohon, an investment banker. He is an actor, known for Bitter Moon (1992), Sphere (1998) and Patch Adams (1998). Coyote was previously married to Stefanie Pleet and Marilyn McCann.

Coyote has acted in at least three different languages

1. English E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial 2. Spanish Kika 3. French The Great Role

36. Julie Dreyfus

Actress | Inglourious Basterds

Julie Dreyfus was born in Paris, France. After studying interior design, she moved to Japan as a young adult and made her debut on Japanese T.V. She became fluent in Japanese and English and appeared in several American movies as well. She is very well known in Japan but is also known ...

Dreyfus has acted in at least three different languages

1. English Kill Bill: Vol. 1 2. Japanese Rampo 3. French Jean Moulin

37. Rutger Hauer

Actor | Hobo with a Shotgun

Blond, blue-eyed, tall and handsome Dutch actor Rutger Hauer enjoyed an international reputation for playing everything from romantic leads to action heroes to sinister villains. Hauer was born in Breukelen, a Dutch town and former municipality in the province of Utrecht.

He was the son of Teunke ...

Hauer has acted in at least three different languages

1. Dutch Soldier of Orange 2. English Blade Runner 3. German Das Amulett des Todes

38. Julie Delpy

Actress | Trois couleurs: Blanc

Julie Delpy was born in Paris, France, in 1969 to Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet, both actors.

She was first featured in Jean-Luc Godard's Detective (1985) at the age of fourteen. She has starred in many American and European productions since then, including Disney's The Three Musketeers (1993), ...

Delpy has acted in at least three different languages

1. French Beatrice 2. English Before Sunrise 3. German Europa Europa

39. Jackie Chan

Actor | Ngo si seoi

Hong Kong's cheeky, lovable and best-known film star, Jackie Chan endured many years of long, hard work and multiple injuries to establish international success after his start in Hong Kong's manic martial arts cinema industry.

Jackie was born Kong-sang Chan on April 7, 1954, on Hong Kong's famous ...

Chan has acted in at least three different languages

1. Cantonese The Legend of Drunken Master 2. Mandarin Little Big Soldier 3. English Rush Hour

40. Marlene Dietrich

Soundtrack | Witness for the Prosecution

Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator ...

Dietrich has acted in at least three different languages

1. German The Blue Angel 2. English Witness for the Prosecution 3. French The Room Upstairs

41. Michael Haneke

Writer | Caché

A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world ...

Haneke has directed movies in at least three languages

1. German The White Ribbon 2. French Caché 3. English Funny Games

42. Roman Polanski

Director | Chinatown

Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.

His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years ...

Polanski has directed movies in at least three languages

1. Polish Knife in the Water 2. French The Tenant 3. English Chinatown

43. Walter Salles

Director | Central do Brasil

Walter Salles was born on April 12, 1956 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is a director and producer, known for Central Station (1998), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) and Terra Estrangeira (1995). He is married to Maria Klabin. They have one child.

Salles has directed movies in at least three languages

1. Portuguese Central Station 2. Spanish The Motorcycle Diaries 3. English Dark Water

44. Luis Buñuel

Writer | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the ...

Buñuel directed movies in at least three different languages

1. Spanish Viridiana 2. French The Phantom of Liberty 3. English Robinson Crusoe

45. Kar-Wai Wong

Director | Yi dai zong shi

Wong Kar-wai (born 17 July 1956) is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylised, emotionally resonant work, including Ah fei zing zyun (1990), Dung che sai duk (1994), Chung Hing sam lam (1994), Do lok tin si (1995), Chun gwong ...

Wong has directed movies in at least three different languages

1. Cantonese In the Mood for Love 2. Mandarin Happy Together 3. English My Blueberry Nights

46. Bernardo Bertolucci

Writer | Il conformista

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director whose films were known for their colorful visual style, was born in Parma, Italy. He attended Rome University and became famous as a poet. He served as assistant director for Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film Accattone (1961) and directed The Grim Reaper (...

Bertolucci has directed in at least three different languages

1. Italian The Conformist 2. English The Last Emperor 3. French Last Tango in Paris

47. Andrei Tarkovsky

Writer | Offret

The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the...

Tarkovskiy has directed movies in at least three different languages

1. Russian Andrei Rublev 2. Swedish The Sacrifice 3. Italian Nostalghia

48. Wim Wenders

Director | Der Himmel über Berlin

Wim Wenders is an Oscar-nominated German filmmaker who was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until ...

Wenders has directed movies in at least three different languages

1. German Wings of Desire 2. English Paris, Texas 3. French Beyond the Clouds

49. Aki Kaurismäki

Producer | Le Havre

Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific ...

Kaurismäki has directed films in at least three different languages

1. Finnish The Man Without a Past 2. English Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses 3. French La vie de bohème

50. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

Lang has directed movies in at least three different languages

1. German M 2. English The Big Heat 3. French Liliom

51. Abbas Kiarostami

Writer | Copie conforme

Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career ...

Kiarostami has directed movies in at least three different languages

1. Persian Taste of Cherry 2. French Certified Copy 3. Japanese Like Someone in Love

52. Orson Welles

Actor | Citizen Kane

His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...

Orson Welles has directed movies in at least three different languages

1. English Citizen Kane 2. French The Immortal Story 3. Spanish Don Quixote