Actors You Might Not Know are TCKs

A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a term coined by American sociologist Ruth Hill Useem. A TCK is defined as “A person who spent a significant part of his/her development years outside the parents' culture.” With TCKs, they form their identities through people rather than places due to their mobility as children.

Whether we see it or not, there are TCKs all around us. Globalization has made TCKs more common. It is surprising to learn how many cross-cultural adults there are and even more surprising to learn how many of them became famous actors.

Here are five:

Scott Foley

Scott Foley. Photo by: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Scott Foley is an American actor who spent much of his time traveling as a child. He is fluent in Japanese and English. Foley is known for his roles on the television show Felicity, Scandal, and Whiskey Cavalier. He was born in Kansas City and because his father was an international banker, he spent the majority of his early childhood moving around from Japan and Australia.

His mom passed away from ovarian cancer and after he moved back to the US to finish his high school education. In a recent interview with Survivor Net, he says“ dealing with loss at a young age, and dealing with someone who’s sick all the time, that really turned me into someone who built the resilience in me that I walk with today.”

Viggo Mortensen

Photo Source: Quiver Distribution

Viggo Mortensen is best known for his role in the television series Lord of the Rings. He can speak seven languages give or take – one of the beauties of being a culturally mobile third culture kid. Mortensen’s mother is American and was born in New York City while his father is Danish which is how he learned the language. At an early age, he lived in Venezuela, Denmark, and Argentina. Throughout his life, he has learned English, Spanish, Danish, French, Italian, Arabic, and Catalan.

He attended a private boarding school in Argentina while his parents handled a divorce. Afterward, his mother brought him and his brothers back to her home state of New York. From there, in his young adulthood, he graduated from St. Lawrence University in New York and then lived in Denmark, England, and Spain for several years following.

Julie Christie

Photo by Debbie Sears/Closely Observed Frames

Julie Christie was born in Chakua, Assam, India to a tea planter and a painter. She grew up on her father’s tea plantation and eventually went to England for school. In England, she lived with foster parents and was expelled for a rude joke. She then lived with her mother in Wales after her parents separated. She moved to France soon after to continue her education. In Paris, France she improved her French and also can speak Italian. She moved to London to pursue acting and began her career at age 17 winning her first Academy Award at age 25.

Santiago Cabrera

Photo by Mathieu Young/Issuu

Actor Santiago Cabrera is best known for his roles in Heroes and Merlin. was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Because his father was a diplomat, he spent the majority of his childhood in London, Romania, Toronto, and Madrid. Today, he splits his time going between Los Angeles and London and considers his hometown to be Chile.

As an actor, he is known for his impeccable accents despite being from Venezuela. When he lived in England, he mastered the accent to fit in with the other kids. Being culturally mobile as a child he learned English, Spanish, French, and Italian. He attended a school in London to pursue his acting career.

Millie Bobby Brown

Photo by: Dimitrios Kambouris/ Getty Images

DIMITRIOS KAMBOURIS/GETTY IMAGES

Seventeen-year-old Millie Bobby Brown is best known for her roles in Enola Holmes and the Netflix show Stranger Things. Brown was born in Marbella, Andalusia, Spain and moved to Bournemouth, Dorset in England at age four. After she turned eight, her family moved to the United States in Orlando, Florida where she began to pursue acting landing her first major role as Eleven in Stanger Things when she was twelve years old.

Over the course of her childhood, she lost hearing in one ear and became a trained boxer prior to her acting career. She speaks Spanish and English fluently and now resides in Los Angeles, California with her parents.