The Smartest Celebrities In Hollywood

Feelings Drama

5 weeks ago

Transcript

00:00Celebrities.

00:01They're just like us, except some of them are smarter.

00:04Like way smarter.

00:05From certified Mensa members to MIT scholarship offers, let's take a look at some celebrities

00:10with surprisingly high IQs.

00:12Conan O'Brien

00:13A comic legend was born when a tall ginger took over for David Letterman and premiered

00:17a show called Late Night with Conan O'Brien in 1993.

00:20But before he cracked jokes for a living, O'Brien hit the books as a history and literature

00:24major at Harvard.

00:25He sharpened his communication skills writing for the Harvard Lampoon, and graduated magna

00:29cum laude from the Ivy League school in 1985.

00:32Diploma in hand, Coco wasn't quite sure what his future would look like.

00:35He told USC's second annual comedy at SCA Festival,

00:38"...I didn't know what I was going to do.

00:40I didn't know how I was going to do it.

00:43But I remembered thinking, it's not going to be medical school, it's not going to be law

00:47school."

00:48In the end, Conan obviously settled on a career in show business, putting that intellect to

00:52good work.

00:53"...we have 14 kids!"

00:54"...do something for this family, Conan!"

00:58"...I'm very new."

01:00Geena Davis

01:01Known for her diverse body of work, from The Fly, to Thelma and Louise, to A League of

01:06Their Own, Oscar winner Geena Davis is also a member of Mensa International, a society for

01:10those with IQs in the top 2 percent of the world.

01:12Fluent in Swedish, and with a reported IQ of 140, Davis is a certified genius.

01:17Davis almost qualified for the 2000 Sydney Olympics with the U.S. archery team, despite having

01:21picked up a bow and arrow for the first time just two years prior.

01:24"...I'm Geena Davis, and this is how I arch."

01:28Dolph Lundgren

01:29You may know him best as Ivan Drago, the Terminator-like Soviet boxer who fought Apollo Creed in

01:34Rocky IV.

01:35But you can also think of Dolph Lundgren as the greatest chemical engineer who never was.

01:39With a degree in chemical engineering from Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology, and

01:42a master's degree in the same from the University of Sydney, the 6-foot-5 karate black belt received

01:47the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to attend MIT.

01:50Somebody cast this man as a Bond villain already!

01:53Angela Bassett

01:54Best known for her Oscar-nominated turn as the iconic Tina Turner in 1993's What's Love

01:58Got to Do With It?, and more recently for her roles in American Horror Story, actress Angela

02:02Bassett became the first person from her high school to be admitted into the National Honor

02:06Society.

02:07She went on to earn two degrees from Yale, a bachelor's in African American Studies, and a

02:11master's from Yale School of Drama.

02:12Beauty, brains, and biceps.

02:14Bassett has it all.

02:16Cindy Crawford

02:17Ten years before she became one of the most famous supermodels to walk the Earth, Cindy

02:21Crawford graduated as valedictorian from DeKalb High School in Illinois.

02:24Because I'd worked so hard at my academics, I was able to graduate valedictorian.

02:29She was offered an academic scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern University,

02:33but Crawford opted to drop out after one semester and pursue a brilliant modeling career instead.

02:37David Duchovny

02:39Before he became everyone's favorite conspiracy theorist on The X-Files, actor David Duchovny

02:43earned a bachelor's degree in English literature at Princeton and a master's degree in English

02:47from Yale University to fulfill his dream of becoming a poet.

02:50His doctorate from Yale was reportedly cut short after television came calling.

02:54He told The Independent,

02:55You have a fantasy when you're young that you're going to be Nietzsche, that you have

02:57access to the profoundest truths.

02:59I don't really have anything profound to say.

03:01If I had, I imagine I would have been a philosopher.

03:04But I don't really.

03:05On the other hand, I'm not an idiot, either.

03:08Natalie Portman

03:09After her breakout role in 1994 as The Professional at age 14, Natalie Portman's acting career wasn't

03:14going anywhere but up.

03:15And yet, she sought something more.

03:17Portman enrolled at Harvard at the height of her fame.

03:19She explained the decision to The New York Post by saying,

03:21I don't care if college ruins my career, I'd rather be smart than a movie star.

03:25She earned a bachelor's degree in psychology, which helped her hone her Oscar-winning performance

03:29in Black Swan, according to former professor Alan Dershowitz, who told the Harvard Crimson,

03:33She's an actor who uses her academic background.

03:36Emma Watson

03:37She'll always be Hermione Granger to us, but in 2014, Emma Watson proved that she was also

03:42a wizard at muggle schools when she graduated from Brown University with a bachelor's degree

03:46in English literature.

03:47But the road to pomp and circumstance wasn't without its challenges.

03:50She told the Sunday Times,

03:51On the first day, I walked into the canteen and everyone went completely silent and turned

03:55to look at me.

03:56I had to say to myself,

03:57It's okay.

03:58You can do this.

03:59You just have to take a deep breath and gather your courage.

04:01Even though she had to take two semesters off due to work commitments, Watson's smarts

04:04eventually earned her a place among Ivy League alumni.

04:08John Legend

04:09You know his music, but did you know hit maker and philanthropist John Legend graduated

04:13high school at the ripe old age of 16?

04:15According to The New York Times, Legend fielded scholarship offers from Harvard, Georgetown, and Morehouse

04:20before settling on the University of Pennsylvania.

04:22While in college, he was introduced to Lauryn Hill and Kanye West, and the rest was history

04:26for this musical prodigy.

04:29Click the Nicki Swift icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

04:31Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!

The Smartest Celebrities In Hollywood

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended