Top 30 Smartest Celebrities Ever

Top 30 Smartest Celebrities Ever

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the brainiest stars of all time. We won’t be counting celebs who are mostly famous for being smart. Sorry, Dr. Tyson.

#30: Cindy Crawford
After graduating high school as the class valedictorian, she was offered an academic scholarship to the prestigious Northwestern University. Crawford had planned to study chemical engineering. Instead, she dropped out after one semester to become a full-time model. By the late 1980s, she was a household name, and she went on to become one of the most famous models in history. She’s appeared on more than a thousand magazine covers, not to mention TV commercials, movies, talk shows, music videos, you name it. Although Crawford probably would have made a pretty good chemical engineer, we think she made the right career move.

#29: David Duchovny
Before he became Fox Mulder on “The X-Files,” he attended not one, but two Ivy league universities. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in English literature and graduating summa cum laude from Princeton, Duchovny went on to get his Master’s degree from Yale. Just a few years later, he started landing acting roles, and before long his career was off and running. However, starring in multiple hit movies and TV shows wasn’t enough for the multi-talented Duchovny. In more recent years, he’s also become a published novelist and a singer-songwriter, releasing three studio albums. This makes Duchovny a true modern Renaissance man.

#28: Lisa Kudrow
Her best-known character might be a little ditzy, but in real life, this star is quite the brainiac. If acting hadn’t worked out, Kudrow might have followed in her father’s footsteps and become a doctor. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in biology from Vassar, she worked alongside her dad as a medical researcher for eight years. She even co-authored a scientific paper with him about the prevalence of cluster headaches in left-handed people. That paper came out in 1994, the same year she landed her breakout role as Phoebe Buffay on “Friends.”

#27: Kate Beckinsale
Beauty and brains? Some people get all the luck. With an IQ of over 150, it’s no wonder Beckinsale is so good at learning foreign languages. At Oxford, she was a student of Modern Languages, including Russian and French literature. She spent a year studying abroad in Paris, and even speaks a bit of German too. Like many stars, Beckinsale quit school to focus on acting, something she’d wanted to pursue all her life. Now that she’s had a long and successful career on the big screen, she’s expressed interest in going back to Oxford to finish her education.

#26: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Maybe you don’t have to be a genius to come up with so many brilliant song parodies, but it probably doesn’t hurt. Yankovic was a star student from a young age, starting kindergarten a year early and skipping second grade. That meant he was just 16 years old when he graduated high school as valedictorian. He went on to earn a degree from California Polytechnic in the notoriously challenging field of architecture. While in college, he worked as a DJ and began recording parodies of current hit songs. His popularity began to skyrocket, and by the 1980s he was working as a musician full-time. I wonder if he displays that architecture degree alongside his many Grammys.

#25: Rashida Jones
With notable roles in “Parks and Recreation,” “The Office,” and “The Social Network” to name a few, Jones has more than her fair share of enviable accomplishments. She also has a considerable head on her shoulders as well. A Harvard alum, Jones successfully graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in comparative religion in 1997. She actually had plans to become a lawyer, but the O.J. Simpson trial allegedly jaded her aspirations. Instead, 1997 saw her take her first step into the limelight with a role in the Mario Puzo miniseries “The Last Don” before catching her major break on “Boston Public,” and things have only been on the up and up ever since.

#24: Emma Watson
You may know her best as the incredibly intelligent witch Hermione Granger, in the “Harry Potter” series and Watson had plenty of inspiration to draw upon for her role. In 2011, she became a student along side her acting career, working towards a degree in English Literature from Brown University, while also studying for a time at Oxford. Watson is clearly quite well spoken, and her UN Women campaigns more than prove it. The only downside to all this? Trying to avoid imaginary points for Gryffindor from unruly classmates whenever she answers a question.

#23: Matt Damon
Does life imitate art or does art imitate life? A young Matt Damon may suggest the latter as his breakout work in “Good Will Hunting” told the story of an incredibly talented young man forced to face his past, and live up to his potential at MIT. Damon actually began working on the award-winning screenplay during a playwriting class he was taking at, you guessed it… Harvard University. This of course skyrocketed him to fame, and his light has hardly dimmed since then, but cut short his studies, technically making Damon just short of being a college grad. Take a look past the charisma and good looks, and you’ll find a well-spoken, very bright man as well.

#22: Masi Oka
This actor originally planned to work in Hollywood behind the scenes. After graduating from Brown University with degrees in computer science and math, he went to work for Industrial Light and Magic. But it turns out he’s just as talented in front of the camera. In his breakout role on “Heroes,” the multilingual Oka translated his own Japanese dialogue from English. He’s also fluent in Spanish, a brilliant chess player, and has a black belt in the Japanese art of kendō. And he’s still working in the tech industry, designing his own video games. Is there anything Masi Oka can’t do?

#21: Danica McKellar
Since playing Winnie Cooper on “The Wonder Years,” Danica McKellar has popped up here and there on a few shows and TV movies. One of her most notable guest spots was on “The Big Bang Theory.” In real life, McKellar could teach Sheldon Cooper a thing or two. Outside of acting, McKellar is best known for her knowledge of mathematics. She’s written several books on the subject, including “Hot X: Algebra Exposed,” “Kiss My Math,” and “Math Doesn't Suck.” It takes a brilliant mind to make math sound interesting and that’s precisely what McKellar has done. She’s helped to show a lot of blossoming minds, particularly young girls, that math isn’t for squares… unless we’re talking about geometry. See, that’s a little math humor.

#20: Angela Bassett
“Black Panther” brought together one of the most gifted ensembles in the superhero genre. Howard graduate Chadwick Boseman became well-versed in Shakespeare while taking Oxford’s summer program. Shortly before winning her Oscar, Lupita Nyong’o graduated from Yale with a master’s in acting. She wasn’t the only Yale alumnus on set. In 2020, Angela Bassett became the first black recipient of the Yale Undergraduate Lifetime Achievement Award. The Oscar-nominated actress had already earned a B.A. in African-American studies, a Master of Fine Arts degree, and an honorary doctorate from the university. On top of all that, Basset met Courtney B. Vance, who she later married, at Yale.

#19: Natalie Portman
A globally admired film star, Natalie Portman is just as academically revered as well! Yes, she’s got an Oscar, a BAFTA, and two Golden Globes… But she’s also a Psychology graduate out of Harvard, and she’s fluent in Hebrew! At Harvard, she contributed to a paper entitled; “Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy”… Which is hard to say, let alone write! Portman once famously said she’d, “rather be smart than a movie star”… As it turns out, she’s doing a seriously good job at being both!

#18: Conan O’Brien
Primarily known as America’s longest-working late-night talk show host, before being a celeb interview supremo, Conan O’Brien was also busy racking up intelligence at Harvard University. An esteemed Literature and History graduate, O’Brien was president of the Harvard Lampoon comedy magazine while he studied. His career as a writer was set out from an even earlier age though… He graduated high school as valedictorian in 1981, having won national awards for a short story of his titled, “To Bury the Living”!

#17: Jodie Foster
A film star with a thing for foreign languages, Jodie Foster actually attended a French-language prep school during childhood. Consistently described as a ‘gifted child’, she could read at the age of three, and is at least competent at most major European languages. In 1985, Foster graduated magna cum laude out of Yale University, despite the fact that she was already a movie star by then! Too often, child stars suffer a well-documented fall from grace… But for Foster, there was less self-inflicted scandal and much more schooling!

#16: Alicia Keys
You already knew she’s a musical prodigy, but you might not have realized that Keys was an academic prodigy too. She graduated high school as her class valedictorian at just 16 and received a scholarship to study at Columbia University. However, she soon left for a different Columbia – Columbia Records. Having already signed her first record deal at age 15, Keys decided to put her education on hold and focus on her music. When the label refused to let her have creative control, the teenage singer took the bold step of ending her contract. It was the right move, considering that she would go on to become a massive best-selling artist and win multiple Grammys.

#15: John Legend
Being one of the few artists to achieve EGOT status, we have to ask, is there anything John Legend can’t do? The short answer is no. The long answer is that music is only the tip of Legend’s resume. Skipping multiple grades, Legend attended high school by age 12 and graduated at 16. Although he could’ve gone to Georgetown or Morehouse on scholarships, as well as Harvard, Legend settled on the University of Pennsylvania. Upon graduating, Legend became a management consultant for the revered Boston Consulting Group. Although Legend learned a fair deal about business and probably could’ve built a successful corporate career, he kept reaching for the stars. On the side, he wrote, performed, and produced his own music, amounting to a legendary legacy.

#14: John Cleese
Widely listed as one of the great comic geniuses of all time, John Cleese was overflowing with more academic artistry as well! A graduate from Downing College, Cambridge, he was instrumental in making the university’s ‘Footlights Club’ a prime breeding ground for British comedy. In terms of his actual studies, Cleese left with a Law degree… But possibly his most important achievement at Cambridge was his befriending Graham Chapman. Beside a group of other highly educated blokes, the duo would go on to pen “Monty Python”, one of the most surreal success stories ever shown on TV!

#13: Reggie Jackson
Mr. October isn’t just a Hall of Fame clutch hitter. He’s also a literal genius. With an IQ of 160, Jackson has to be one of the smartest pro athletes in history. Despite facing significant racism early in his career, he went on to become a superstar, winning three World Series titles with the Athletics and two more with the Yankees. His fame isn’t limited to the baseball diamond. Jackson has also cameoed in numerous movies and TV shows, and was even on the short list of actors considered to play Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

#12: Rowan Atkinson
An actor who is rumored to have listed his profession as “engineer” on his passport, Rowan Atkinson can do that because he has a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Oxford! Which is something that’s almost impossible to believe considering his internationally acclaimed forays into “goofball comedy”, most notably as silent slapstick Mr. Bean, and chaotic secret serviceman Johnny English! A frequent political commentator and activist, as well as an automobile enthusiast, it turns out that beneath that famous turkey, there’s a marvellous mind!

#11: Dexter Holland
We know that being highly educated isn’t the same as being smart, but we’re also willing to bet that anyone who gets a Ph.D. in molecular biology basically for fun must be pretty brainy. Like many of the scholars on our list, Holland put his education on hold when his band, The Offspring, started to rise to fame. After decades of musical success, Holland returned to the University of Southern California and finished his doctoral degree in 2017. But that doesn’t mean he’s stopped performing. On the contrary, The Offspring are still touring forty years after they first got together.

#10: Hedy Lamarr
Even as a child, she wanted to understand how things worked. This led her to become a brilliant inventor, whose scientific achievements mostly went unacknowledged during her lifetime. Despite having little formal education, she worked with Howard Hughes to invent a new airplane design, created a fizzing tablet that could turn a glass of water into cola, and much more. Her most famous invention, by far, is the frequency hopping technology that makes wi-fi, GPS, and Bluetooth possible. It’s not a stretch to say that without Hedy Lamarr, the modern world might look very different.

#9: Shakira
Hailed as the Queen of Latin Music, this Colombian singer achieved international fame with hit songs like “Whenever, Wherever” and “Underneath Your Clothes.” While we all know that Shakira is a lyrical genius, she’s an all-around genius as well. A member of Mensa International, Shakira possesses an IQ of 140. To give you an idea, the average IQ is somewhere around 100. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as Shakira is fluent in multiple languages, including Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, and Arabic. Not every seven-year-old would want a typewriter for Christmas. Young Shakira, however, was intrigued watching her father use his typewriter, which was gifted to her. She used it to write poems, which led to songwriting, which led to fame.

#8: Nolan Gould
On “Modern Family,” Alex was the resident academic while Manny was the precocious one. Luke, meanwhile, could be a bit on the slower side. Behind the scenes, though, actor Nolan Gould was the child prodigy. We guess now he’s an adult prodigy. With an IQ of 150, Gould was welcomed into Mensa. Skipping four grades, he graduated from high school by the time he was 13. He spent the following few years primarily focusing on his acting commitments, but he did get a headstart with some early college courses. Then in 2017, at age 18, he was accepted into the University of Southern California. Whatever the future holds for Gould, we’re sure he’ll excel at any path he takes.

#7: Ken Jeong
There’s probably a good chance your first introduction to this actor was his side-splitting performance in “The Hangover.” Is it a surprise to hear he would also be more than prepared to save your life on a minute’s notice? Ken Jeong studied pre-med at Duke University and got his M.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Not too many actors can transition to a 6-figure job at a hospital if the roles dry up. During his early days, Jeong actually would split his time between treating patients and taking comedy gigs before his big break as… a doctor, in “Knocked Up.”

#6: Geena Davis
They say if you say Beetlejuice three times in a row, a Mensa member who’s fluent in Swedish with an IQ of 140 will appear. While Davis may be most associated with “Thelma & Louise” and “Beetlejuice,” she has put her impressive intelligence to good use as well. Notably, Geena received an honorary Doctorate from Bates College in 2009 for research on gender studies in the media. Hey, it’s not easy to be an Olympic caliber athlete, Academy Award winning actress, and noted genius, but this triple threat has been accomplished.

#5: Sharon Stone
Stone is an Academy Award nominated actress, and often remembered for her performance in “Basic Instinct,” but she’s also undoubtedly the smartest person in most rooms she walks in to. At age 15, while most of us were working on getting our learner’s permit, Sharon was awarded a college scholarship to Edinboro University where she studied creative writing and fine arts. With a whopping IQ of 154, Stone is comfortably in the top portion of the 99th percentile- qualifying for but never actually joining Mensa.

#4: Quentin Tarantino
Don’t get any ideas, but Tarantino dropped out of high school and landed a job at a porn theater. This behavior may not be most typical of a genius, but he’s indisputably just that. Yes, a slew of films that are considered masterpieces may indicate his prowess, but the “Pulp Fiction” director had set himself apart from the rest of the world long before that with a nearly unheard of IQ of 160. For reference, this puts him squarely in the 99.996 percentile, right next to legendary theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. Truly a poster child of structured education’s shortcomings, Tarantino was destined to shake things up from the very beginning.

#3: Dolph Lundgren
The on-screen epitome of an all action hero, there are considerable brains to back up Dolph Lundgren’s brawn! Best known for playing Russian boxer Ivan Drago in “Rocky IV”, Lundgren may look tough on screen, but he’s actually a Master of Chemical Engineering, graduating from the University of Sydney in 1982! Before that, the Swedish actor had already accumulated a Chemistry degree from Washington State, and a degree in Chemical Engineering from Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology! Dolph Lundgren’s intelligence is an international affair!

#2: Mayim Bialik
She plays a neurobiologist on TV, and she has a Ph.D. in neuroscience in real life… Mayim Bialik’s is a ‘role vs. reality’ match unlike anything else in the industry! After gaining fame as a child star on “Blossom,” Bialik was brought back into the public eye when she starred as super smart Amy Farrah Fowler on the geek comedy TV series, “The Big Bang Theory”… Just a few years before her debut on the show, Bialik finished her studies, gaining particular note as a specialist on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents. It’s no wonder her on-screen brains are so believable!

#1: Brian May
Having earned fame and fortune as lead guitarist in Queen, Brian May attained an Astrophysics Ph.D. from Imperial College London in 2007, after cutting short his original studies in the mid-‘70s! Since then, he’s co-authored twice with Sir Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott on “Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe” and “The Cosmic Tourist”. In 2015, he was also introduced as a science team collaborator at NASA! He’s a specialist in zodiacal dust… Although that’s not what Freddie Mercury was famously referring to!


Which brainy celeb do you think is the most impressive? Let us know in the comments below.