Being a Hollywood star doesn’t require a first-class university degree. There are a lot of popular Hollywood actors and actresses that don’t have a degree. At the same time, many smart actors can quickly offer research papers help to someone in need. Many smart actors in Hollywood would have been scientists, or college professors but chose to follow their passion for acting. Keep reading to see the names of the top six smartest people in Hollywood.

Top 6 Smartest Hollywood Actors

1. James Franco

In high school, Franco was a math wiz who eventually got admitted to UCLA. During his freshman year, he decided to drop out and pursue his acting career. However, ten years later, he went back to school and has picked up several college degrees since then. He completed his schooling at UCLA and enrolled at the Brooklyn College of fiction writing. That was followed by the New York University for filmmaking, and Columbia University. He also got a PhD in English from Yale and attended the Warren Wilson College which is located in North Carolina.

2. Ashton Kutcher

Ashton Kutcher’s dream was to study engineering at MIT on scholarship. Unfortunately, he lost the opportunity when he broke into his high school as part of a prank. He was also expelled from the National Honors Society. He subsequently settled for the University of Iowa. However, when he was 19, he abandoned his education and started his modeling career. He later became a full-time actor. He is one of the smartest Hollywood actors around, and he is also an investment guru with stakes in Spotify, Airbnb, and Foursquare.

3. Conan O’Brien

Conan O’Brien is another smart actor in Hollywood. He got his history and literature degree from Harvard in 1985. During his years at Harvard, he was an active student. He was the president of a secret organization known as Havard Lampoon and was tagged the pre-eminent jokester of his class. His senior thesis was a 72-page long book titled “The ‘Old Child’ in Faulkner and O’Connor” and it was a controversial piece.

4. John Legend

This actor and songwriter also happens to be a genius. While he is popularly known as a soul singer, he used to work at one of the most prestigious consulting firms in the United States, Boston Consulting Group. Because of his exceptional performance in high school, he was offered scholarships to Morehouse, Harvard, and Georgetown. However, he refused to accept any of these scholarships and decided to go to UPenn. At UPenn, Legend studied English (African-American literature) and was one of the best graduating students.

5. Kevin Spacey

Kevin Spacey is another smart actor who decided to drop out of college to pursue his acting career. He was the best graduating student in his high school class after which he enrolled in Juilliard. There he studied for two years and dropped out before he could get his degree. Before he became a big silver screen actor, he was a star on Broadway. He is among the ever-growing list of actors who are advocating for a new form of entertainment distribution called the Netflix Model.

6. David Duchovny

Few Hollywood stars can boast about successfully attending two Ivy League universities like David Duchovny. The actor who became popular after his lead role in X-Files has a BA in English literature from Princeton University and a Masters in English literature from Yale. While he was on his PhD program at Yale, he got a beer commercial which brought him into the spotlight and paved the way for his career. Unable to balance his studies with his career growth, he dropped out.

There are many other smart actors in Hollywood, and most of them often play smart roles in the movies.