George Clooney: 'Italian is my kids' secret language'

George Clooney says he and his wife Amal made a big parenting mistake when they decided their twins should speak Italian - because mum and dad don't.

The Oscar winner, who owns a villa in Lake Como, didn't realise there was a language barrier between himself and his three-year-old kids until they started speaking fluent Italian.

"We did a really dumb thing, which is they speak fluent Italian," the actor/director told U.S. late night host Jimmy Kimmel.

"But I don't speak Italian. My wife doesn't speak Italian. It's terrible. We've armed them with a language, a secret language," Clooney added, laughing.

"I'll say, you know, 'Go back in and clean up your room before...' They're like, 'Eh, papa stranzo'. I'm like, 'What...?' I'm from Kentucky, English is a second language to me."

Clooney and the family have spent much of the Covid-19 lockdown in Los Angeles, where the actor stayed busy taking care of household chores, cooking, and "wood staining the entire house", joking, "It kept me out of the room with the kids speaking Italian."