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.
James Franco is a Ph.D. Student at Yale
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.
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.
Dr. Oz Is an Accomplished Cardiothoracic Surgeon
Dr. Mehmet Oz is often called foul names because of the backlash that a lot of television doctors have been receiving about their dubious credentials. But The New York Times has dubbed him as “one of the most accomplished cardiothoracic surgeons of his generation.” Oz has also performed about 5,000 open-heart surgeries and a lung transplant operation. That is quite a feat, even for a surgeon like him.
Oz was educated at Harvard University with an undergraduate degree in biology in 1982. He then earned MD and MBA degrees at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Penn’s Wharton School.
Harry Hill Is a Neuroscientist
What is it about comedians and their astute minds? This BAFTA-winning comedian is actually a former neurosurgeon. With his outlandish style, Harry Hill may not look the part, but he certainly armed himself with great medical knowledge. Hill attended Angley School and then later went to Cranbrook School in Kent, then St. George’s Hospital Medical School before obtaining his degree and training in neurosurgery from the University of London.
Hill quit the medical profession because he didn’t like the feeling of not being able to control the circumstances around him. But despite this, he is still on England’s list of registered medical practitioners.