James Franco is a gifted yet controversial actor. His acting break came in 1999, but he only gained worldwide fame in the film Spider-Man, in 2002, when he played Harry Osborn. Franco loves to learn, and who wouldn’t with that remarkable intellect of his? He graduated from Columbia University with a master’s in fine arts.
Franco also attended Brooklyn College for fiction writing, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for filmmaking, and the low-residency MFA Program for Writers at North Carolina’s Warren Wilson College for poetry. But he did not stop there. Franco also has a Ph.D. in English from Yale University.
JK Rowling Has a Degree in French
As one of the most famous novelists of the modern era, one would think that JK Rowling would have a degree in literature. But the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series actually earned a bachelor of arts degree in French and classics at the University of Exeter. She graduated in 1986 after enjoying a year of study in Paris.
Rowling wanted to study English but her parents thought that being a bilingual secretary was the way to having a stable job. She did become a bilingual secretary in London for Amnesty International and later worked at the Chamber of Commerce before she began writing Harry Potter.
Danai Gurira Has a Bachelor's in Social Psychology
Danai Gurira first held our attention as Michonne on The Walking Dead. But she actually has a long and esteemed career in television, film, and theater. Gurira is more than just someone who has been crushing bad guys on TV. This gifted actor and playwright has a degree in social psychology from Macalester College in Minnesota. She also has a master’s in acting from the Tisch School of the Arts in New York.
Being a Zimbabwean-American, she is expected to know more than one language. But she is actually proficient in four languages! She speaks French, English, Shona, and Xhosa.
Sacha Baron Cohen Graduated From Cambridge
Who knew that Sacha Baron Cohen obtained a serious degree in college? Baron Cohen is known for creating and playing moronic fictional characters, such as Ali G, Bruno, and Borat Sagdiyev. He was completely into the characters he portrayed and had different accents and appearances for each one. His talent earned him many awards, including the Best Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards, in 1999, for The 11 O’Clock Show.
But the Baron Cohen off-screen is far from dumb. He attended an independent private school in Hertfordshire and went to the University of Cambridge after, entering Christ’s College, Cambridge. In 1993, he earned an upper-second-class degree in History, which means he graduated with upper-second-class honors. Baron Cohen was part of the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, where he performed in several plays, including Cyrano de Bergerac and Fiddler on the Roof.
Alison Williams Is a Yale Grad
She plays Marnie Michaels, who is known for making bad decisions, on the comedy-drama series, Girls. Allison Williams is the opposite, though. She knew what she wanted to do—to act professionally. She had her education in New Canaan Country School and Greenwich Academy. Williams later attended Yale University, where she focused on her degree in English and archaeology. While attending Yale, she joined the improv comedy group, Just Add Water. It was here that she found out where her passion was, comedy.
Williams performed a mashup of the song A Beautiful Mine, the theme song for the TV series Mad Men, and it caught the attention of many viewers. One of those viewers was Judd Apatow, who gave her a part in the series Girls.