Javier Bardem was a renowned Spanish actor for years before breaking internationally after learning English. Apparently, we have a certain iconic rock band to thank for helping Bardem with English.

The Academy Award-winning actor shared in an appearance on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend that listening to AC/DC helped him with learning English. He said, “All the curses, all the bad words I learned from AC/DC, f-ck yeah! And I’m still learning.”

Bardem mentioned that he owned a number of AC/DC albums on cassette tapes. Even though the songs were sung in English, the lyrics printed on the cassette insert were in Spanish.

He explains, “But for me, it was like, ‘What are they saying?’ It’s not in Spanish. I was trying to make sense of the word in Spanish and what I was hearing. And then I would look to a dictionary, and then because of that, I would learn the word on top of the word below. So AC/DC helped me learn English because I wanted to learn the lyrics.”

Bardem plays King Triton in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid which hits theaters on May 26. The film’s trailer can be viewed below.

 

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