Speaking in Tongues Trivia Quiz

Answer: Natalie Portman

Born in 1981 in West Jerusalem as Natalie Hershlag, Natalie Portman is a dual US and Israeli citizen from birth, as her mother is a US citizen. Though Hebrew is her native language, the family moved to the US when Natalie was 3, so she had the opportunity to grow up bilingual. She has also learned other languages, which she speaks with varying degrees of fluency. These include French (she was married to a Frenchman for 12 years), Arabic, German, Spanish and Japanese. She reportedly learned some of these languages for acting roles.

Natalie Portman portrayed Queen Padmé Amidala, the mother of Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker, in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy. In 2011 she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as a ballerina in the film "Black Swan".

Answer: Viggo Mortensen

Born in 1958 in Waterton, New York, Viggo Mortensen is known for his creative pursuits outside his career as an actor - namely photography, painting, poetry and music. As is father was Danish, Mortensen has dual US-Danish citizenship, and is fluent in Danish. Having spent most of his childhood in South America (Venezuela and Argentina), he grew up speaking Spanish as well as English. According to some sources, Mortensen is also conversational in Italian - a skill he acquired when living in Argentina, where about half of the population has Italian ancestry - and also learned French and Arabic for some of his film roles. Mortensen has written poetry in English, Spanish and Danish.

Viggo Mortensen is best known for his portrayal of Aragorn, the Ranger of the North who eventually becomes king, in the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson in the early 2000s.

Answer: Shakira

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, known mononymously as Shakira, was born in 1977 in Barranquilla, Colombia. She has Lebanese ancestry on her father's side, and her name means "thankful" in Arabic - a language she speaks with some degree of fluency, though Spanish is her native tongue. In the wake of the success of her album "Pies Descalzos" (1995) in Brazil, Shakira learned Portuguese in order to be able to talk to people there. She did not learn English until the early 2000s, and was reportedly helped in learning the language by Cuban-born singer Gloria Estefan, whose husband Emilio produced Shakira's breakthrough album "Laundry Service" (2001). Shakira can also speak Italian and Catalan - which makes for an impressive six languages.

Shakira learned to belly dance as a child and often uses belly dancing moves in her performances.

Answer: Trevor Noah

Stand-up comedian, writer, and political commentator (among other things) Trevor Noah was born in 1984 in Johannesburg, South Africa. At home he spoke Xhosa (his mother's native language, a member of the Bantu group of African languages) as well as English. However, growing up in the black township of Soweto, where different ethnic groups live, he also picked up Zulu, Tswana, and Tsonga - all official languages of South Africa. For Noah, learning languages was in many ways a matter of survival in the tough environment of the township. He also speaks Afrikaans, while - in spite of having a Swiss-German father - he does not claim to be fluent in German.

Trevor Noah was the host of the late-night talk show "The Daily News" from 2015 to 2022, replacing Jon Stewart. The show's satirical content has often come under fire, and Noah's comedy style has attracted its share of criticism.

Answer: Sandra Bullock

Sandra Bullock was born in 1964 in Arlington, Virginia. Her mother, Helga Mathilde Meyer, was a German opera singer and voice teacher, who had met and married John Wilson Bullock, a US Army employee, while he was stationed in Nuremberg. Bullock spent much of her childhood in Germany and Austria, and attended school there, learning to speak German fluently - although, according to an article in the German newspaper "Die Welt", with a slight French accent. She also applied for German citizenship in 2009, and is now a dual US-German citizen. At the 84th Academy Awards ceremony (held on 26 February, 2012), Bullock presented the award for Best Foreign Film (won by the Iranian film "A Separation") in German.

Among Sandra Bullock's most prominent roles there are bus driver Annie in "Speed", FBI agent Gracie Hart in "Miss Congeniality", and astronaut Ryan Stone in "Gravity".

Answer: Leonardo DiCaprio

Born in 1974 in Los Angeles, Leonardo DiCaprio has Italian and German ancestry on his father's side, while his mother is German: the actor's middle name is Wilhelm, the German version of William. His first name was inspired by a visit to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, during which his mother felt him kick for the first time while looking at a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. DiCaprio learned German during his frequent visits to Germany as a child, while he built his proficiency in Italian as he got older, and developed a strong interest in the language and culture of Italy.

Leonardo DiCaprio has been one of Hollywood's most successful actors for nearly three decades. Along with his appearance as doomed Jack Dawson in record-busting epic "Titanic", he is known for his frequent collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. In 2016 he was awarded an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of frontiersman Hugh Glass (who survived a grizzly bear attack) in the film "The Revenant".

Answer: Jodie Foster

Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster was born in 1962 in Los Angeles, where as a child she attended a bilingual private school, the Lycée Français de Los Angeles - also attended by fellow actresses Claire Danes and Molly Ringwald, as well as supermodel Christie Brinkley - graduating in 1980. Her fluency in French is such that it has allowed her to dub herself in French-language versions of her films. She also has a good knowledge of Italian, and has been able to conduct interviews in that language. According to some Internet sources, she also has some knowledge of Spanish and German.

Jodie Foster's screen career began when, at three years of age, she starred in a TV advertisement for suntan lotion Coppertone. She won Academy Awards for Best Actress in 1989 for "The Accused", where she played waitress Sarah Tobias, and in 1992 for her role as Clarice Starling in "The Silence of the Lambs".

Answer: Lupita Nyong'o

The beautiful and supremely elegant Lupita Nyong'o was born in 1983 in Mexico City from Kenyan parents; because of that, she has Kenyan and Mexican citizenship, while she became a US citizen in 2024. Her name is a diminutive of Guadalupe - Our Lady of Guadalupe being the patron of Mexico and Latin America. Nyong'o's parents of Luo descent: the Luo are an ethnic group of Kenya and Tanzania who speak a Nilotic language. She grew up in Nairobi, but at 16 went back to Mexico to learn Spanish; then she went to the US to attend college and eventually begin her acting career. Along with Luo, Spanish and English, Nyong'o is also fluent in Swahili, which is one of Kenya's official languages.

Lupita Nyong'o became the first black African to win an Academy Award when she won the Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2014 for her portrayal of Patsey in the film "12 Years a Slave". Incidentally, the father of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the US, was also a Luo Kenyan.

Answer: Christopher Lee

Legendary actor Sir Christopher Lee, who sadly passed away in 2015 at the age of 93, was a true polyglot - as well as a classically-trained singer who recorded a number of heavy metal albums. The scion of an upper-class family, he had Italian ancestry on his mother's side (his full surname being Carandini Lee), and spoke the language fluently. Having spent part of his childhood years in Switzerland and France, he also spoke French and German, while he learned Spanish at university. He also had a knowledge of Swedish (he was engaged to a Swedish countess in the 1950s), Greek and Russian. On top of that, he also studied Ancient Greek and Latin.

In a career that spanned over 60 years, Christopher Lee made great use of his commanding voice and physical presence in his portrayals of iconic movie villains such as Count Dracula, Francisco Scaramanga (in the James Bond film "The Man with the Golden Gun"), Saruman (in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy), and Count Dooku (in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy).

Answer: Colin Firth

Born in 1964 in Grayshott, England, Colin Firth spent much of his childhood out of the country, as his parents were both academics who often traveled for their work. However, he did not set out to learn a foreign language in earnest until he met Italian film producer and activist Livia Giuggioli, whom he married in 1997. The couple, who have two sons together, lived part of the year in the region of Umbria in Central Italy. Firth was granted Italian citizenship in 2017, two years before his separation from Giuggioli (though they have remained close friends). He is fluent in Italian, which he speaks with a lovely British accent. In an interview on the differences between British, American and Canadian actoris that can be found on YouTube, he demonstrates a remarkable command of Italian grammar and vocabulary - which is not always easy to achieve for native speakers of English.

Colin Firth's career breakthrough came in the mid-1990s when he portrayed Mr Darcy in the BBC adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice". He has often starred in romantic movies: in "Love Actually" (2003), he plays a writer who falls in love with his Portuguese housekeeper, and begins learning the language in order to declare his love to her.