Polyglots: Five stars who've wowed their fans in more than one language

Whether they’re playing a role in a movie or singing an emotional song, stars of stage and screen are in the business of communication.

So of course they need to be masters of their own language. But a few stars can perform in more than their native tongue - a skill that can be very handy in the world of work.

Here are five celebrities who've given their careers a multilingual twist.

Tom Hiddleston

Tom Hiddleston is probably best known for playing God of Mischief Loki in the Marvel movies as well as the recent streaming TV series. But a lesser-known fact about the British actor is that he is a keen polyglot.

He studied classics at The University of Cambridge, where he learned Ancient Greek and Latin. While he may not get to have a chat in those languages very often, his knowledge of classical languages probably gave him a good foundation to learn some modern ones. He's been interviewed in Spanish, French and Italian.

And he's also showed off, among others, a bit of German, Russian, Korean and Mandarin. A real-life linguistic superhero, then.

Céline Dion

Céline Dion was born and brought up in French-speaking Quebec, in Canada, and her first albums were all sung in her native language.

At the end of the 1980s, she took a break from performing and learned English, recording her next albums in that language – and becoming one of the overall best-selling female artists of all time

In 1996, France's Minister of Culture awarded her Médaille des Arts et Lettres (Medal of Arts and Letters) to recognise her status as the best-selling French-language artist in history.

But she's also performed across the globe in an astonishing nine languages, including Spanish, Japanese, German, and Mandarin.

Zayn Malik

The former One Directioner was born and raised in Bradford to a Pakistani father and British mother.

He learned Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, from his father, and can speak it fluently.

He’s even sung in the language: the song Intermission: Flower from his 2016 debut album Mind of Mine is sung in Urdu.

And the song Tightrope from his third album Nobody Is Listening also features Urdu lyrics, this time from a song by Mohammed Rafi, one of India's most popular singers.

Zayne has also said he can read Arabic.

He and Gigi Hadid chose an Arabic name, Khai, for their first daughter. In a 2021 interview with Vogue magazine, Gigi revealed Khai will be using Arabic and Dutch, and Urdu and English nicknames for, respectively, her maternal and paternal grandparents. A polyglot in the making!

Sandrah Oh

Best-known for playing super-clever doctor Cristina Yang in medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, Sandra Oh was born to Korean parents in the province of Ontario, Canada.

In 2019, she made headlines when she became the first woman of Asian descent ever to host the Golden Globes Awards. She went on to win the award for Best Actress in a TV Drama, the first Asian woman to do so in almost 40 years.

In her acceptance speech, she thanked her parents, who were in the audience, in Korean and bowed to them.

But she described herself having to improve to appear as a Korean-speaker in TV series The Chair. “I speak such baby Korean,” she said.

Sandra also learned French when she moved to Montreal to study acting at the National Theatre School.

Cillian Murphy

County Cork-born Cillian Murphy is best known for his role as gangster Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, as well as his starring roles in Hollywood blockbusters such as The Dark Knight and Inception.

In 2000, he appeared in a 28-minute Irish Gaelic film. And, more recently, when he had to speak French in Peaky Blinders, he had a head start as his mum used to be a French teacher.

"I used to have very good French when I was young and had the energy to practise it but I let it go a bit and I don’t speak it anymore, so my mum refreshed me for those lines," he told Variety in 2022.