66 Smartest Celebrities That Are Not Only Talented, But Also Intelligent

"Dolly Parton. When asked if 'dumb blonde' jokes offended her, she replied, 'No. I know I'm not dumb, I also know I'm not blonde.' Gotta love Dolly."

"Played Amy Farrah Fowler on Big Bang Theory as a neuroscientist. She has a Ph.D. in neuroscience in real life."

"Lisa Kudrow. She plays a lot of dummies but has a degree in Biology from Vassar and worked as a medical researcher for a few years before getting into acting."

"Brian May from Band 'Queen'. He has a Ph.D. in astrophysics."

"Nolan Gould, the actor who played the really dumb kid on Modern Family, graduated from high school when he was 13."

"Rowan Atkinson. He has an MS in electrical engineering and was working on his Ph.D. before he decided to turn fully into entertainment. He definitely had a backup plan for if show business failed."

"Ken Jeong is a medical doctor. Can you imagine being one of his patients?"

"Tom Hiddleston graduated Cambridge with a double first in Classics."

"Betty White. According to interviews with her costars, she's actually very smart. Nothing at all like some of the characters she's played."

"Sylvester Stallone has an IQ of roughly 160. He has paralysis in his face, which affects his speech, so people think he's "dumb." People who judge for such a superficial reason are criminally stupid."

"Steve Martin is in MENSA."

"Fronted Black Flagg and his own band. Often thought of as a dumb angry guy who liked fighting. He is extremely well-read, is a prolific writer, hosts his own radio show, is a spoken word comedian, and podcaster, wrote a column for the LA Times, talented actor, and travels the world on a regular basis. He is a thoughtful speaker, polite to a fault, humble to self-deprecating levels, a spaz, and one of the biggest fanboys of rock and punk era music."

"Most people probably already know this but Ronan Farrow is a genuine wunderkind. he started Bard College at age ELEVEN after years of academic excellence, including a perfect SAT score. graduated Bard at age 15 (the youngest person to ever do so), attended Yale Law, and passed the New York State Bar. then he got a Ph.D. from Oxford and became a world-renowned journalist. he’s written multiple books and, oh yeah, is a Rhodes Scholar."

"Shakira can speak five languages fluently (Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, and Arabic) and also translates all of her music herself."

"David Duchovny. Recently read one of his novels and I was blown away. (The book is titled Truly Like lightning) Mr. Duchovny has an undergrad in English Literature from Princeton, a master's from Yale, and an unfinished doctorate."

"Ryan Reynolds. He is well on his way to becoming a billionaire in the next decade through his business ventures."

"Natalie Portman. Harvard grad and has published in Psychology."

"He is one of most talented popular musicians of the century and pretty much single-handedly created (or at least popularized to the mainstream) the entire subgenre of funny music. He graduated in 1975 and was valedictorian of his senior class. He attended California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where he earned a bachelor's degree in architecture."

"Salma Hayek. She is very well-spoken, very eloquent, and an amazingly smart businesswoman. Also, in an interview at Armchair Podcast with Dax Shepard, she started talking about how much she loves science, and research and started talking about String Theory."

"Conan O'Brien has an IQ of 160 putting him up there with Steven Hawking and Einstein. He also went to Harvard."

"Chris Pine. He got an English degree from Berkeley and it shows. He's extremely well-spoken and eloquent in interviews. He and Zachary Quinto used to have a competition between themselves over who could implement more SAT vocab into their interview answers."

"Dexter Holland from The Offspring. Just a few years ago, he completed his PhD in Molecular Biology."

"Dude plays a big dumb character but has a masters in chemical engineering and I believe is part of Mensa."

"Danica McKellar. She's a math whiz, graduated summa cum laude, and has written books about math."

"Rebel Wilson is a lawyer."

"Ashton Kutcher studied bio-med to help find a cure for his twin brother's heart condition. He dropped out after getting a modeling contract. He is a very smart businessman and entrepreneur. He is valued at a few hundred million."

"Mick Jagger got into the London School of Economics, a prestigious school. He later dropped out to do music, but people say over the decades, the Rolling Stones have handled their money better than most bands."

"Jackie Chan has many degrees in art and science for example."

"William Sanderson, a.k.a. Larry from the show Newhart. ("Hi, I'm Larry, this my brother Darrel, and this is my other brother Darrel.") He has a law degree from Memphis State University."

"Jennifer Lawrence. When I first watched an interview with her I couldn't help but notice how well-spoken she is when she speaks about certain topics or when she answers certain questions. She also uses words I don't really use and don't know the meaning of and in some interviews, she seems to have a very fluid vocabulary. Also, directors have said she can pick up songs and scripts very quickly and she could be given a script one day and she's learned it the next. I don't know about you but I can see that she's clever."

"Jennifer Coolidge! She usually gets typecast as a busty bimbo, but she's actually pretty much the opposite."

"Has anyone mentioned Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden? Marketing director for an airline, an airline pilot, and an entrepreneur. Actually, lots of hard rockers are pretty educated and accomplished at things other than rock and roll. But Bruce is one of my favs."

"Wecht attended Williams College and the University of California San Diego where he obtained his Ph.D. in particle physics in 2004. Wecht held research positions at Harvard University, the Center for Theoretical Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the University of Michigan, prior to becoming a faculty member at the Queen Mary University of London. While there, Wecht worked on string theory, supersymmetry, and quantum field theory."

"Shaquille O'Neal - Barry University, Ed.D in Human Resource Development."

"I host a podcast with Paris Hilton, I'm being serious, and she's actually remarkably intelligent. The voice is an act that she perfected to pretend to be dumb (her voice is actually much deeper), then got The Simple Life, which was the world's first hit docu-follow series, and now makes millions of dollars selling literally everything. She's a marketing genius."

"Owen Wilson co-wrote Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums with Wes Anderson."

"Harry Hill (UK comedian) is a qualified GP."

"Brooke Shields suspended her career at 18 to go to Princeton. Got a Bachelor's in Romance languages."

"Jennifer Tilly. Highly self-aware and intelligent on top of being able to hang with pros at Poker, and has a killer sense of humor."

"Ina Garten. She’s known for her cooking and over-the-top Hamptons lifestyle, but she was a budget analyst under Presidents Ford and Carter."

"Terry Crews. The man is a diversification master and can learn anything."

"Jim Varney is known for playing a goofy guy named Ernest "Hey Vern!" Was a genius. Extremely intelligent, even though he played a character that lacked common sense and was generally dumb. Enjoyed spending his free time working on pocket watches and working with the small machinal parts inside to see how they work."

"John Cena. He can speak Chinese semi-fluently, plays the piano, and do a slew of other things that I can’t remember off the top of my head."

"Cindy Crawford, the modeling icon who now hawks a furniture line. Graduated as class valedictorian from DeKalb High School and pursued a degree in chemical engineering at Northwestern University on an academic scholarship."

"Bradley Cooper. Speaks French, went to Georgetown for undergrad, and has a master, just not what I imagine when I see him."

"Mira Sorvino. Harvard graduate and learned mandarin when she did a student exchange to Beijing."

"I mostly watched him for Big Fat Quiz of the Year, and he doesn't really take that seriously, but in some of his youtube videos, he sounds pretty damn intelligent than what most people give him credit for. Reminds me of an interview he had on an American Day time show they basically didn't take him seriously and he somehow cleverly made them look like idiots."

"Peter Weller has a Ph.D. in Art History and has taught history at Syracuse University."

"We all think he is dumb because he makes dumb movies, but that’s what makes him so smart. He does movies where the studio essentially just pays for him and his buddies to go on a couple of months of vacation (often in some beautiful area) where he just plays himself. He gets paid millions of dollars to vacation with his buddies."

"Charlie Day is a really smart guy. He usually plays characters not too dissimilar from Charlie Kelly on It's Always Sunny. But IRL he's a multi-instrumentalist, writer, producer, and just an all-around intelligent guy."

"Manny Jacinto, known for playing Jason on A Good Place. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in civil engineering at one of the top schools in Canada."

"Tom Morello has a degree in Social Studies from Harvard."

"Till Lindemann, the man has a certification in pyrotechnics, but I'm pretty sure other than the music most people know him as that German rock singer."

"Kesha. She had an almost perfect score on the SATs and was accepted to Barnard, but she dropped out to pursue music."

"Apparently Sofia Vergara was about to become a dentist, and the only reason why she stopped was to become an actor."

"James Woods is a crazy conspiracy theorist, but went to MIT and supposedly has an IQ of 180."

"Rob Gronkowski. My understanding is he hasn't spent any of his NFL salaries but lives off sponsorships only. There are many NFL players, like "The Fridge" who go broke quickly after leaving the league."

"Will Smith turned down a scholarship to MIT to become a rapper."

"Nathan Fielder graduated from one of Canada's top business schools with really good grades."

"Flava Flav is actually very musically talented. When someone asked Chuck D why they had him in Public Enemy because all he did was say, 'Yeaaah booooyyy,' Chuck replied that Flava was the only one who could play an instrument. In fact, he could play about nine different ones and was actually quite gifted."

"Ben Affleck. He went to Occidental College, which is where Obama went, for a bit. Another fun fact is that he got kicked out of a Vegas casino for counting cards."

"Stephen Tobolowsky. Plays goofy characters, but has a brilliant podcast (and books, probably. Haven't read them yet)."

"Russell Westbrook. One of the NBA's top points guards and former MVP is usually said to be pretty stupid due to his low IQ on the court. He makes a lot of questionable decisions and tends to try too hard to get himself out of trouble when he can just pass to the next open player. He is in fact one of the smartest players in NBA history. He graduated high school with a 3.9 GPA and was an honor student. He even got offered a full-ride scholarship to Stanford for his academics. But he went to UCLA on a basketball scholarship."