With the world growing smaller every day, it's no wonder that many of our favorite stars come from other countries. It used to be that every once in awhile a secretly Canadian actor like Michael J. Fox or Anna Paquin would pop up on a TV show and no one would be the wiser, but now there are so many famous celebrities who aren't Americans that we feel like we should educate our audience as to who’s who in the fame game. These are the celebs that you didn’t know are not US citizens.
These foreign-born celebrities each come from a different place, and they all landed in America for different reasons. Some of them emigrated with their parents, while others didn’t wash up on our shores until well into their career. Whatever it was that brought them here, the one thing that they all have in common is that we love watching them perform. On this list we’ll look at what each celebrity without US citizenship thinks of both America and their home country. And maybe even find out if they plan on becoming a US citizen any time soon.
Celebs You Didn't Know Aren't US Citizens,
Alison Pill
All the signs were there that Alison Pill is Canadian: she was in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and she was engaged to Jay Baruchel. As a proud Canadian actress, she's somewhat critical of the hypocritical American/Canadian casting process. "I couldn’t get hired in Toronto for a play, and then I moved to New York for a while and I did plays all the time. America has a weird, patronizing, awful - like, the most disgusting attitude toward Canadian actors. You have to audition in New York or L.A. for s*** that is shooting in Toronto."
Famke Janssen
For a group of people who came of age in the '90s (teenage boys), Famke Janssen is basically Farrah Fawcett - she's an all-American babe! But if we've learned anything, it's that when someone seems all-American, it probably means that they're from the Netherlands. In a conversation with Seth Myers, Janssen said that when she first came to New York when she began her modeling career she was afraid of living in the city because the only thing she new about New York was from the movies of the time.
Keanu Reeves
Reeves is an international man of mystery. He was born in Lebanon, and is technically a Canadian citizen, but he lives in Los Angeles and has literally zero accent. It's weird. If you're wondering how he got his start in America, the actor said that he got a green card when he was 20 before he "drove across the border from Canada and came to LA."
Kiefer Sutherland
Hold on. Jack Bauer isn't from America? Fine, he's Canadian, we can live with that. What's that? HE WAS BORN IN ENGLAND?! Pack it up, turn the lights off, we're going home.
Mila Kunis
It kind of makes sense that Mila Kunis is from the Ukraine. Eyebrows don't get that fleek without a strong Eastern Bloc bloodline. After arriving in America at the age of seven, Kunis said that she "cried every day. I didn’t understand the culture. I didn’t understand the people." We're assuming she's over that now.
Natalie Portman
Thanks to films like Garden State and the Thor series, Natalie Portman is a fundamentally American actress. But she was actually born in Jerusalem! Even though she wasn't technically born an American, she spoke to People about how living in Paris makes her feel fundamentally American.
Oscar Isaac
Can you believe that Oscar Isaac was born in Guatemala? Have you heard his accent in Ex-Machina? He just sounds like some guy from the middle of nowhere! And as someone from Latin America, he says that "Donald Trump is "definitely irritating. The problem is it's less about the guy that's saying it, and more that he's being the mouthpiece for a large part of the population. Because that's me, that's my family. We're immigrants."
Portia de Rossi
This is absolutely shocking, but Lindsay Fünke/Ellen's wife/Elizabeth North was born in Australia. We feel like such fools! As far as being an American, de Rossi says that she feels like she's "disappointing the whole of America" by not having children.
Tina Turner
In 2013, TIna Turner formally relinquished her US citizenship after accepting a Swiss citizenship. According to the Washington Post, Turner had been living in Switzerland for two decades before making the decision. In the relinquishment she said that she had no strong ties to the US “except for family, and has no plans to reside in the United States in the future.”
Justin Bieber
With all of his success, and all of his DUIs, Justin Bieber seems kind of like he's peak American. But he's really just a Canuck from Stratford, Ontario. And even though he spends most of his time living in Los Angeles, Bieber has no plans of becoming an American citizen: "You guys are evil. Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills."