Actors who are highly educated


You’ve got to hate movie stars, right? Not only are the filthy rich, staggeringly good-looking, and making movies for a living, some of them all also crazy smart too! It’s easy to assume that a lot of actors just went straight from school to Tinseltown, and that is often the way it goes. However, there are some big-name stars out there who are also wicked smart, and who have been really highly educated. These are just some of the stars we know of who have had a great education outside of acting, and who we would definitely want on our pub quiz team!

James Franco

We spend a lot of time crushing on James Franco – c’mon, he’s the perfect man crush! Apart from being ridiculously talented, insanely funny, and a stand-up dude, James is also incredibly clever. We bet you never knew that James has been educated at an array of stellar institutions. UCLA, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and Yale are just some of the places this guy has studied. And, that’s been alongside a successful and varied film career. We love you, James!

franco

Natalie Portman

Another of the wicked smart stars on our list is Academy Award winner Natalie Portman. This talented screen beauty actually enrolled at Harvard to study psychology (under her birth name Natalie Hershlag, of course). Portman enrolled in 1999, and studied alongside acting, graduating in 2003 and returning to acting. Natalie is definitely one of those stars who has it all, wicked talent, and wicked smarts, and we hear she’s just lovely as well.

natalie-portman

Claire Danes

Claire Danes has always been a smart cookie, and she got her letter of recommendation for Yale written by director Oliver Stone. Danes took a break from acting to attend Yale for two years at the age of 19 to read psychology. However, she only completed two years of her course before dropping out to return to acting. Considering she’s earned great success with Homeland, we don’t suppose she minds too much! Danes has not ruled out a return to education in the future, and could well get her psychology degree in the end after all.

Claire-Danes

David Duchovny

We know him best as Fox Mulder or Hank Moody, but we were never aware that David Duchovny is one smart dude. He earned an English degree from Princeton, and started, but never finished, a Ph.D. in English Literature at Yale. After deciding acting was his true passion, he dropped out. Those are some pretty awesome schools, and David has talked about his mom’s disappointment that he never completed it. We don’t think she’d have been too annoyed though after The X-Files ran for almost 10 years!

david-duchovny-1024

These movie stars make us sick with envy – brains, beauty, talent, and boatloads of cash. These are the people we look up to and aspire to be, and they set the benchmark for the rest of us. We bet you never knew these actors were so highly educated, and now you can show off your extensive actor knowledge to your friends!

Recommended For You

The best X-Men characters

When you’re dealing with something as massive as the X-Men, it can be tough to decide exactly who are your