Many are the celebrities of Spanish or Hispanic origin, so it’s only natural that they are fluent in Spanish, but not only native Spanish speakers celebrities are the only ones who speak Spanish. ¡No señor!
There are also many others who have learned the language of Cervantes. Let’s see some names:
Viggo Mortensen
Probably one of my favourite names of this list (and one of the most attractive actors this world has gifted to us) is Viggo Mortensen.
Viggo is a Danish-American actor, author, musician, photographer, poet and painter.
Born in New York, the family moved to Venezuela, then Denmark, and eventually settled in Argentina where he attended primary school and acquired a fluent proficiency in Spanish. He then attended university in New York, earning a bachelor’s degree in Spanish Studies and Politics in 1980.
Afterward, he went to Europe and lived in Spain among other countries.
In 2006, he starred as Captain Diego Alatriste in the Spanish language film Alatriste, based on the series of novels The Adventures of Captain Alatriste, written by the Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
Watch here his interview (in Spanish of course) about the recent movie Captain Fantastic:
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth is an American actress, singer, and food writer, who is also a fluent Spanish speaker.
Paltrow is an “adopted daughter” of Talavera de la Reina (Spain), where at 15, she spent a year as an exchange student and learned to speak Spanish. She continues to regularly visit the town and her host family.
Watch her interview explaining how she learned her Spanish:
Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer.
When Affleck was 13, he filmed a children’s television program in Mexico and learned to speak Spanish during a year spent traveling around the country with his mother and brother. He spent a few months studying Spanish at the University.
You can hear him answering some questions in Spanish in this interview:
Kobe Bryant
Kobe is an American retired professional basketball player and businessman. He played his entire career with the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA. Great career but what I personally find more interesting (Spanish teacher bias, probably) is that the Los Angeles Lakers player is fluent in Spanish. He learned the language while traveling with his father as a young child.
He’s Spanish speaking skills are actually pretty good. Listen to this interview in Spanish:
Matt Damon
Matt is not only married to a Spanish-speaking Argentine lady, he is also highly proficient in the language. The actor studied Spanish through an immersion program in Mexico and later put those skills to use as he backpacked through Mexico and Guatemala.
Sure, he is not fluent but he does string sentences correctly… slowly but surely!
David Beckham
David Beckham is an English former professional footballer. This futbol star learned Spanish while playing for Real Madrid.
Watch him saying goodbye to the Real Madrid.
They all speak Spanish. And traveling, working and love are the main reasons why they learned. Those are also the reasons why most of us also catch the language bug.
What are yours?
Share in the comments below, I’d love to hear why you started to learn Spanish.
