Many people believe actresses are not well-educated because they often start their careers at a young age, prioritizing acting over education.
Additionally, acting in movies or TV shows doesn’t typically require a college degree, even if they portray highly educated characters like rocket scientists. However, here is a list of talented actresses who have pursued higher education while maintaining successful acting careers.
NATALIE PORTMAN
Natalie Portman is a Harvard graduate, which is a big deal even if you are not an actress and are born with a very high IQ.
Her schooling began when she attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Maryland.
While living on Long Island, the Star Wars actress attended a Jewish elementary school, the Solomon Schechter Day School of Nassau County.
She also studied ballet and modern dance at the American Theater Dance Workshop, and attended the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts.
At some point she enrolled at the Stagedoor Manor performing arts camp.
Portman graduated from Syosset High School in 1999. Her high school paper, A Simple Method to Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar, co-authored with scientists Ian Hurley and Jonathan Woodward, was entered in the Intel Science Talent Search.
In 1999, she began attending Harvard University to pursue her bachelor’s degree in psychology. She studied advanced Hebrew literature and neurobiology, and she served as Alan Dershowitz’s research assistant.
Portman graduated from Harvard in 2003.
MIRA SORVINO
Like Natalie Portman, Mira Sorvino attended Harvard University.
The daughter of Goodfellas actor Paul Sorvino grew up on the East Coast. She was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey.
The leggy brunette also went to The Elisabeth Morrow School, a private, co-educational, day school in Englewood, New Jersey, educating children from nursery through eighth grade.
Then the star went to The Dwight-Englewood School, an independent coeducational college-preparatory day school, located in Englewood in Bergen County, in New Jersey. The school teaches students up to 12th grade in three functionally separate schools.
She was then accepted to Harvard University.
She studied for one year as an exchange student with CIEE in Beijing, China, where she studied Mandarin Chinese.
In 1989, she graduated from Harvard magna cum laude with a degree in East Asian studies.
She also helped found the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, one of Harvard’s co-ed a cappella groups, in 1985.
BROOKE SHIELDS
Shields was born in New York City and started modeling at the age of 11 months.
But the star also attended school the entire time while growing up in Haworth, New Jersey.
Shields first attended the New Lincoln School until she graduated in the eighth grade.
The Pretty Baby actress then went to Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey, and graduated in 1983.
That same year Shields took a break from her modeling career to attend Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Shields graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Romance languages in 1987.
Brooke told Glamour in 2022: ‘The ability to say I graduated with honors from this esteemed place, coming from the entertainment industry, it enabled me to have my own opinions.
‘And I don’t think I had them before. It was just, “Oh, she’s the pretty one. That’s the model,” or whatever. It was all very surface, which is fine.
‘I had a blast. But I knew I needed to develop intellectually so I wouldn’t become a victim to the pitfalls of the industry.’
 EVA LONGORIA
Longoria was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, and has two degrees: her Bachelor of Science at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and her master’s degree from California State University, Northridge.
She did not speak Spanish growing up, and did not learn the language until 2009.
Longoria earned her Bachelor of Science degree in kinesiology at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
At that time (1998), she also won the title of Miss Corpus Christi USA.
After completing college, she entered a talent contest that led her to Los Angeles; and shortly thereafter, was spotted and signed by a theatrical agent.
While auditioning for roles, she worked as a headhunter for four years.
After three years at California State University, Northridge, she received her master’s degree in Chicano studies in May 2013.
Her thesis was ‘Success STEMS From Diversity: The Value of Latinas in STEM Careers’.
LADY GAGA
Lady Gaga – born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta in NYC – studied music at New York University.
From age 11, she attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school.
Because she had started playing a piano as a child, her parents encouraged her to pursue music and enrolled her in Creative Arts Camp.
She then attended Regis High School where she starred in her school plays.
Gaga also studied method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute for 10 years.
In 2003, at the age of 17, Gaga gained early admission to Collaborative Arts Project 21, a music school at New York University (NYU)’s Tisch School of the Arts.
She lived in an NYU dorm.
During her time at the Tisch School she focused on songwriting.
In 2005, Gaga withdrew from school during the second semester of her second year to focus on her music career.
Her first hit songs were Just Dance and Poker Face; both came out in 2008 when she was 22-years-old.
JODIE FOSTER
Jodie Foster, whose birth name is Alicia Christian Foster, attended prestigious Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Taxi Driver star grew up in Los Angeles to a single mother who got Jodie into acting at a young age.
Foster was a gifted child who learned to read at the age of three, she claimed.
She attended the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, a French-language prep school, and became fluent in French.
When she graduated in 1980, she delivered the valedictorian address for the school’s French division.
She went on to study at Yale University in the early 1980s.
The Oscar-winning actress majored in African-American literature.
Jodie wrote her thesis on Toni Morrison under the guidance of Henry Louis Gates Jr., and graduated magna cum laude in 1985.
In 1993 she went back to Yale to talk to the graduating class.
In 1997, The Silence Of The Lambs actress also received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree.
And in 2018, she was awarded the Yale Undergraduate Lifetime Achievement Award.
MEGAN THEE STALLION
Megan Thee Stallion, born Megan Jovon Ruth Pete, has graduated from Texas Southern University.
The Hot Girl rapper – who got her stage name due to her 5ft10in height – was raised in Houston, Texas.
The budding rapper attended Pearland High School and graduated in 2013.
In 2013, she became freshman at Prairie View A&M University.
By this time she was already rapping and making videos that she shared on social media.
She told Rolling Stone in 2021: ‘I thought I wanted to be a nurse and then I found myself at school and I was like, okay, definitely don’t want to be a nurse,’ she said.
‘I didn’t tell my parents I switched my major and then I started really rapping. I left Prairie View and I came home. I got a job, but I was still going to community colleges.
‘Finally, I was like you know what? I need to go back on campus. So then that’s when I wound up at Texas Southern University.’
She graduated in December 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in health administration.
EMMA WATSON
Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson is a graduate of Brown University, a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island.
After moving to Oxford with her mother and brother, she attended the Dragon School, remaining there until 2003.
From age six, she wanted to become an actress, and trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts.
She also studied singing, dancing, and acting at the theater school. The brunette had never acted professionally prior to the Harry Potter series.
After the Dragon School, Watson moved on to Headington School, Oxford.
While on film sets, she and her castmates were tutored for up to five hours a day.
In June 2006, she took GCSE school examinations. In May 2007, she took AS levels in English, Geography, Art, and History of Art. The following year, she dropped History of Art to pursue the three A levels, receiving an A grade in each subject.
Watson took a gap year after finishing secondary school, to film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Parts 1 & 2 beginning in February 2009.
She then went to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
In March 2011, after 18 months at the university, Watson announced she was deferring her course for ‘a semester or two’.
In May 2014, she graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature.
In 2023, she began a masters course in creative writing at Oxford University.
