13 Famous People Who Are Smarter Than You Think!

 

Who is the among Hollywood's elite when it comes to intelligence?

 Which world famous supermodels can back up their beauty with brains?

 Find out in 13 Famous People Who Are Smarter Than You Think!

 Number 13.

 "Rashida Jones"

 Quick witted actress Rashida Jones is one of television's brightest stars due to her starring roles in the wildly successful sitcom Parks and Recreation and the slapstick crime spoof Angie Tribeca.

 Jones was born with genius in her blood as she is the daughter of the prolific music producer Quincy Jones but you might not know just how smart she is.

 Before her foray into television and movies she attended Harvard University where she received degrees in philosophy and religion.

 Her intelligence has undoubtedly helped her to hone her acting skills and help her to become one of the leading celebrities when it comes to humanitarian and charity efforts.

 Number 12.

 "Conan O'Brien"

 The goofy yet remarkably talented Conan O'Brien started off as a writer for Saturday Night Live and The Simpson's and has been one of the most popular talk show hosts of 21st Century, starting off with Late Night then moving on to The Tonight Show and his newest format Conan.

 It can be difficult at times to see through his oddball antics but you have to admit it takes a lot of smarts about a whole slew of different things in order to be able to relate to guests from all walks of life in the way that he does.

 O'Brien is considered one of the most intelligent people in show business and has a degree in American History from Harvard to prove it.

 It was at Harvard where his comedy writing first took off as he was a writer and the eventual president of the infamous Harvard Lampoon.

 Number 11.

 "James Franco"

 While it can be hard to picture due to his roles as the lovable idiot in movies like Pineapple Express, James Franco is a bonafide genius.

 Originally dropping out of UCLA to pursue his acting career Franco never lost his desire for more knowledge just because he achieved fame and fortune.

 Throughout his career Franco has found the time to attend not just one but several of the most renowned Universities in the United States.

 While in the middle of filming the Spiderman trilogy, Franco went back to UCLA and received a degree in creative writing but didn't stop there.

 He moved to New York and began studying Film at NYU's Tisch School for the Arts, poetry at North Carolina's Warren Wilson College, fiction writing at Brooklyn College and pursuing a Master's in creative writing from Columbia University all at the same time!

 After graduating from Columbia and NYU he enrolled at Yale where he sought to obtain a Ph.D. in English.

 Number 10.

 "Natalie Portman"

 After achieving worldwide fame from her role as the female lead in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Natalie Portman would go on to star in hit after hit such as Black Swan and V for Vendetta.

 As talented as she may be at acting it might not even be her true calling as her intellect rivals some of the world's greatest minds.

 While still filming movies and performing in Broadway Plays Portman remained adamant about furthering her education.

 She was accepted into Harvard University where she received a bachelor's degree in psychology.

 Perhaps this is the reason that she is so adept at morphing into different roles and being able to understand the psyche of troubled characters.

 Number 9.

 "Tommy Lee Jones"

 Tommy Lee Jones has one of the best ranges of any actors in Hollywood with his ability to play everything hard-nosed heroes to crazed villains.

 This ability may stem from his real-life creative genius and sharp intellect.

 Jones attended Harvard on a football scholarship, graduating in 1969 with a degree in English literature.

 While attending the distinguished university Jones was the roommate to none other than former Vice-President Al Gore.

 While completing his studies he further developed his passion for the arts and after leaving he took-on several Broadway roles before breaking into film and television in the 1970s.

 Jones would go on to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the 1993 movie The Fugitive and has been nominated for three other films.

 Number 8.

 "Kate Beckinsale"

 As the star of the action-packed Underworld series and dramas like Pearl Harbor, Kate Beckinsale has earned the praise of critics and achieved fame and fortune.

 But Beckinsale is more than just a leading lady and vampiric vixen with stunning looks, she has the brains to back it up.

 Beckinsale attended one of the world's most prestigious universities Oxford where she studied acting before making her big screen debut.

 This wouldn't wait too long though as only a year in to studies it was apparent that she was destined for even greater things than just studying at one of the most renowned acting schools.

 She was discovered by legendary Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh who cast her in his film version of Much Ado About Nothing.

 Her appearance received rave reviews and she dropped out of Oxford in order to further pursue her movie career.

 Number 7.

 "Steve Martin"

 As one of the most innovative and groundbreaking comedians of our time Steve Martin, became a household name with his successful stand-up career, guest hosting Saturday Night Live and his subsequent leads in blockbuster comedies like The Jerk and The Man WIth Two Brains.

 If you are at all familiar with Martin's stand-up comedy you will know that he has a remarkable talent for mixing the absolutely silly and absurd with subtle yet genius wit.

 But you might not know just how smart this comedy icon is.

 Although he dropped out of UCLA, where he was studying philosophy, to work as a comedy writer it seems Martin never really needed structured education to attain brilliance.

 As a member of the prestigious MENSA society for people with IQ's in the 98th percentile, Martin has the brainpower to absorb almost any information thrown at him and probably turn it into joke as well.

 His genius has led him to be one of the most revered art collector's in the world, a frequent contributor to New Yorker magazine, a prolific bluegrass musician and successful playwright.

 Number 6.

 "Dolph Lundgren"

 Dolph Lundgren is best known for playing the empty-headed Soviet wrecking machine Drago in Rocky IV and being one of the toughest looking action stars of the 80s but inside his imposing stone-chiseled head is a mind that is the human equivalent to a supercomputer.

 After serving in the military, Lundgren chose to go after an engineering degree in his home country of Sweden's most prestigious universities The Royal Institute of Technology.

 After graduating he moved to Australia where he attended The University of Sydney and obtained a Master's in Chemical Engineering.

 He was then offered the highly selected Fulbright Scholarship in order to attend one of the world's most highly regarded engineering schools at MIT.

 After moving to the United States Lundgren decided to halt his studies and pursue his love of acting.

 He moved to New York and after landing a couple of small roles he got his big break when he was cast in Rocky IV.

 Number 5.

 "Tyra Banks"

 Tyra Banks is one of the most successful models of all-time and though she attained this success fairly early in her life her intelligence and drive has allowed her to continually set new bars for herself and achieve greater success.

 She went from being a modeling superstar to an all around media mogul with appearances in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Hollywood movies, as a talk show host and as the host as the wildly popular reality show America's Next Top Model.

 But she didn't get these gigs just because of her looks.

 Banks has always been striving to better herself and improve her business savvy.

 Though she initially decided to put-off college to be a runway model she returned to school earning a certificate from the Executive Education Training Program from Harvard Business School in 2012.

 This achievement was not without controversy though as Banks has been caught calling herself a Harvard graduate, resulting in the ire of actual Harvard graduates, as this program (though a notably difficult intensive course) does not make her an alumni.

 Despite the backlash from this, Banks still had a passion for education and in 2016 became a guest lecturer for the Business School at Stanford University.

 Number 4.

 "Cindy Crawford"

 Before there was Tyra Banks, there was Cindy Crawford, one of the most recognizable and internationally beloved female models of her time.

 Models have long been unfairly labeled as dense or ditsy but Cindy Crawford may have single-handedly destroyed that stereotype all while changing the modeling game and giving smart women who weren't insanely skinny the confidence to go into modeling.

 Before becoming a model Crawford was headed down a much different career path.

 She was the valedictorian at her high school and received a scholarship to Northwestern University to study chemical engineering.

 Although she only attended the school for less than a year, her intelligence and understanding of a wide variety of subjects allowed to her to break new ground in the modeling industry.

 Crawford was arguably the first model to be more than just a model stepping out as a spokesman for several charitable causes and proving herself to be an astute businesswoman successfully becoming the face of dozens of products while appearing in movies, hosting a television show and effectively creating the modern definition of supermodel.

 Number 3.

 "Sacha Baron Cohen"

 As the star of movies like Talladega Nights and Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen has become the heir apparent to comedy great Peter Sellers when it comes to completely transforming and becoming a role.

 This combined with his impeccable comedic timing and ability to stay in character no matter the situation has made him one of England's most successful comic actors.

 Some of the characters that Cohen portrays are downright ridiculous and sometimes incredibly dimwitted yet sometimes it takes a smart person to be able to successfully make such silly roles believable.

 Cohen is the evidence when it comes to this theory as his intellect is considered on-par with some of Hollywood's most brilliant minds.

 Cohen graduated with a history degree from one of England's most prestigious schools, Cambridge University.

 Here he attended the renowned Christ's College and was a member of the school's world famous comedy troupe, The Footlights, which is known for churning out some of the smartest comedians on the planet like Monty Python's John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle along with Last Week Tonight's John Oliver.

 Number 2.

 "Matt Damon"

 Matt Damon is one of the biggest movie stars on the planet he has appeared in such blockbuster hits as Ocean's 11 and The Bourne Identity but he is much more than just a good-looking thespian.

 Damon burst onto the scene with the film Good Will Hunting which he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck.

 If you have seen the movie you will recall that Damon plays the part of an MIT janitor who is incredibly intelligent, but what you might not know is how much Damon had cognitively in common with his character.

 Although the character of Will Hunting is fictional, much of the movie's inspiration comes from Damon's real life experiences.

 Before dropping out to pursue acting Damon actually attended Harvard University where he studied as an English major.

 Number 1.

 "Jodie Foster"

 While award-winning actress Jodie Foster might be famous for playing brainiacs like in the movie Contact or in The Silence of the Lambs you might be shocked to hear that Foster herself can be counted among the intellectually elite.

 Although she started her acting career as a child, Foster always found the time to focus on her studies.

 After already being nominated for an Academy Award at the age of 12 for her role in the the movie Taxi Driver, Foster completed high school at the age of 17 and took a brief hiatus from acting in order to attend Yale University studying Literature and Writing.

 Her studies as the Ivy League school might have helped her grow into an even more brilliant actress as upon graduating her fame and critical success shot into the stratosphere.

 Foster would go on to win two Oscars for her roles in The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs.

 What actors and actresses in Hollywood do you think are the best at playing smart characters?