Celebrities have mothers?

December 2, 2005 1:51 PM

Celebrities speaking their mother tongues

I was recently trying to search for audio of Henry Kissinger speaking in German. This prompted me to note how many celebrities who achieve fame in a culture speaking a different language from their own are so rarely heard in public speaking their mother tongue. For example, the Austrian press will sometimes put things Arnold Schwarzenegger said or “might say” in the Styrian dialect for the purposes of humour, but I don't believe I've ever heard Arnie speaking in German.

BTW, I suspect those who don't have an accent in the language they adopted would be even cooler to hear!

So I thought it might be interesting to ask about audio clips available on the Internet of celebrities under the aforementioned situation speaking in their mother tongues. And I don't want to restrict this to German, so any language would be interesting to me. And not just those who have found fame in America. Presumably interviews in countries speaking their native language would be the best source.

Obviously, someone forced to leave his native land might not be comfortable speaking in that language again, but sometimes it happens. I've read interviews with Kissinger that seem to have been conducted in German. But I want to hear how Bavarian his accent is. And how Styrian Arnie's is.

posted by Gnatcho to media & arts (15 comments total)

Charlize Theron spoke Afrikaans on "The Ellen Degeneres Show" a few weeks ago, but I don't know where to find an audio clip...
posted by clarahamster at 1:56 PM on December 2, 2005

Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking German (via)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:14 PM on December 2, 2005

Can I put in a request for Nabokov speaking Russian?
posted by languagehat at 2:16 PM on December 2, 2005

It's SO STRANGE to hear Schwarzenegger speak German. Because he speaks funny in German, too. I just always assumed that the idiosyncracies of Arnold's english speech were due to his speaking an adopted language.

But he speaks german very slowly as well. He just talks very slowly (even for an Austrian). As someone whose German is merely good, I appreciate it when someone speaks slowly and deliberately. But other native speakers probably get tired of it.
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:29 PM on December 2, 2005

languagehat: Can I put in a request for Nabokov speaking Russian?

Somewhere at home I have a copy of this recording on cassette. It's been many years since I've listened to it -- and it is definitely mostly in English -- but if I recall correctly, there is a tiny bit of Russian (maybe a short poem?) on it. (I could of course be entirely mistaken.)
posted by trip and a half at 2:39 PM on December 2, 2005

Dang, that link totally worked on preview! I'll try again. If that still doesn't work, the Library of Congress Control Number is 99578740, and the Call Number is RZA 3801.
posted by trip and a half at 3:00 PM on December 2, 2005

languagehat: the self titled Nabokov Library has some audio clips of (I assume) him reading two poems in Russian. It's a younger Nabokov whose voice sounds slightly different from these recordings on Salon (where he reads large selections in English -- keep scrolling).
posted by sbutler at 4:53 PM on December 2, 2005

FWIW, Goran Visnjic (Dr. Luka Kovac) has spoken Croatian* in several episodes of E.R., including a recital of Hamlet's "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy in episode 8.16, "Secrets and Lies" (the actor played Hamlet for 6 years in Croatia.)

Also, most of Luka's lines in episode 9.19 ("Things Change") are Croatian dialogue with a visiting doctor. Neither season is on DVD yet so you're probably out of luck...
...but I'm sure somebody not too concerned about copyright could find the episodes on their favorite filesharing network...

...not that I'd condone that, of course.

*At least that's what my references say. I can confirm the actor and character are both from Croatia and he was speaking a foreign language.
posted by Opposite George at 9:38 PM on December 2, 2005

Antonio Banderas, speaking Spanish in an interview with DiarioSur. (From Malaga, Spain, I think.)

And Penelope Cruz, introducing "Blow" in Spain (Click on Blow - Rueda de prensa).

Of course Antonio were famous before they showed up in their first English-language movies and started boinking Melanie Griffith (tee hee) and Tom Cruise (yikes!). Which means plenty of offline opportunities to see them in Spanish films speaking spanish. They're worth watching on their own merits -- try Almodovar's ¡Átame!, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, and the deliciously fucked up Matador, for Antonio. For Penelope, there's weird-sexy Jamón, jamón (including the line "your tits taste like ham"), Todo Sobre mi Madre, and Carne Tremula. To give a few examples.

Same goes for other actors who made it on the U.S. silver screen but had thriving careers before.
posted by donpedro at 10:33 AM on December 3, 2005

sbutler: Thank you very much indeed! I bookmarked the Nabokov site, and it was great to hear him reading. It's fascinating: his style is oratorical but restrained, compared with the (over-the-top by modern standards) style of the poets born just a decade or less earlier; younger Russians were astonished by Akhmatova's drama, and you can hear Mandelshtam reading his poem "No, I was never anyone's contemporary" here (startled the hell out of me!).
posted by languagehat at 10:49 AM on December 3, 2005

Oh, languagehat, you just reminded me of Joseph Brodsky reading "Nature Morte".

Here be video, click on the video link on the right, and then your desired flavour. It should skip to the correct point, if not it starts at 2:57:20.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:48 AM on December 3, 2005

A thousand thanks to you as well! At first I thought you meant about three minutes in, and I sat through a long obit on King Baudoin with growing impatience... then I saw the whole show was three hours, and you meant two hours and 57 minutes! Once I got that cleared up and skipped ahead, everything went smoothly. What a mesmerizing performance!—and it was interesting to see the slight changes he made here and there (зеркальце instead of зеркало in part 6, for example). Truly, much obliged. In one day I've experienced the reading styles of three of my favorite Russian writers of the last century: Mandelshtam, Nabokov, and Brodsky. What could be better?
posted by languagehat at 12:54 PM on December 3, 2005

My thanks as well for the Mandelshtam, Brodsky and Nabokov links! AskMe rules!
posted by trip and a half at 11:05 PM on December 3, 2005

Thanks languagehat. This clip was part of Zomergasten ("Summer Guests"), a three-hour Sunday night programme featuring one guest presenting and discussing their "ultimate TV evening" of favourite clips. This clip was selected by Tom Barman of dEUS, and was (IIRC) originally broadcast as an episode of Dode Dichters Almanak ("Dead Poets Almanac"). Glad you liked it.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:30 PM on December 4, 2005

This reminds me of Burt Lancaster's role in "The Leopard" by Luchino Visconti. In the American release, his dialog is in English, where as the original Italian release was dubbed over. When I saw the film in English his character seemed really different, somehow.
posted by vkxmai at 7:43 PM on December 12, 2005