5 actors with German accents who've made it big in Hollywood

To make it to the top in Hollywood, you usually need to speak perfect English.

But that's not the case for actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christoph Waltz, Jürgen Prochnow, Marlene Dietrich and Armin Mueller-Stahl, who have enjoyed great success despite or - even because of - their German or Austrian accents.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the best-known German-language actors to conquer Hollywood. The former bodybuilder's early films, "Hercules in New York" (1969) and "Mr. Universe" (1976), were actually dubbed because of his heavy Austrian accent.

Arnie's breakthrough with 17 sentences

For his first lead role in the 1982 film "Conan the Barbarian," he took intensive speech lessons. Two years later, "Terminator" was his great breakthrough - and he uttered all of 17 sentences.

But Schwarzenegger continued his rise to fame in hit films "True Lies," "Terminator 2" and "Total Recall" in the 1980s and 1990s. By then, his accent was no longer a casting obstacle, it was his unmistakable trademark.

Arnold Schwarzenegger - who claims to speak English perfectly when not on camera - still cultivates the accent to please his fans.