For an article on the smartest celebrities, we must understand the Intelligence Quotient. To explain,
115-124 – Above average
125-134 – Gifted
135-144 – Highly gifted
145-154 – Genius (such as professors)
155-164 – Genius (such as Nobel Prize winners)
165-179 – High genius
180-200 – Highest genius200 – “Unmeasurable genius”
over 200 – “Unmeasurable genius”
When we think of celebrities such as movie or television stars, our first thoughts are not of their intelligence. We think more about their popularity or acting abilities. Singers are thought of more for their ability to belt out a song we all relate to. Comedians are valued for their ability to make us laugh and entertain us. This is a reminder that they are people and have many facets, just as we do. Here is a look at one side of them that we probably seldom, if ever, consider. You may be surprised by the IQ scores of some of these celebrities.
Table of Page Contents
- Here are some of the Top 10 Smartest Celebrities in The World
- 10. Steve Martin – 142
- 9. David Duchovny – 147
- 8. Ben Stein – 150
- 7. Cindy Crawford – 154
- 6. Lisa Kudrow – 154
- 5. Mayim Bialik – 150-163
- 4. Conan O’Brien – 160
- 3. Matt Damon – 160
- 2. Dolph Lundgren – 166
- 1. James Wood – 184
Here are some of the Top 10 Smartest Celebrities in The World
10. Steve Martin – 142
Steve Martin has many sides. He left college to be a comedy writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy House and won an Emmy in 1969. In the 1970’s, he did stand-up comedy, appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and he wrote for The Sonny and Cher Show. When he appeared as a guest host on Saturday Night Live in 1977, he became an instant hit with his unusual kind of humor. He starred in his first film, The Jerk, in 1979. After that, he played in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man With Two Brains, All of Me, Little Shop of Horrors, Roxanne, and Father of the Bride, among others.
He continues to write and act, but he has other talents. In 2009, his collection of banjo compositions was released and earned him a Grammy Award for Bluegrass Album of the Year. He also collects modern American paintings, and is a movie producer.
9. David Duchovny – 147
Probably best known for his role in the TV series, The X-files, this talented actor has a B.A. degree in English Literature from Princeton University. He was perhaps first seen in a commercial for Löwenbräu beer in 1987. He appeared in a couple of scenes in Working Girl and had a recurring role in Twin Peaks. He was the narrator of The Red Shoe Diaries on Showtime.
In 1998, he began his role in The X-Files. He has been a guest host of Saturday Night Live and played Kane in the sci-fi comedy “Evolution”. He has received several Golden Globe awards. He released an alternative rock album, Hell or High Water, in 2015. He also released his first book, Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale, and starred in a new show, Aquarius.
8. Ben Stein – 150
Stein has a Batchelor’s degree in economics from Columbia, did graduate studies in Economics at Yale, and graduated from Yale Law School and was valedictorian of his class. He has been a poverty lawyer in New Haven, a trade regulation lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission, and wrote a column and editorials for The Wall Street Journal, as well as Baron’s and The New York Times. He was a teacher of law and Economics at UC, Santa Cruz and Pepperdine.
He was also a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He has written or co-written 30 books about politics, investing, and economics. He has been a commentator for CBS News, Fox News, and CNN. He has also had parts in many movies and TV shows including “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “The Wonder Years”, and “The Mask”. It is hard to imagine a more diversified career and Stein does it all equally well.
7. Cindy Crawford – 154
Cindy Crawford was valedictorian of her high school class but left college for a modeling career. She won the “Look of the Year” contest sponsored by the Elite Modeling Agency and soon after that appeared on the cover of Vogue. She was named one of the “100 Hottest Women of All-Time” by Men’s Health magazine. She is known for the mole just above her top lip. She has made more than 500 appearances in top fashion magazines such as Vogue, People, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and Cosmopolitan.
She has also appeared in commercials and represented companies like Maybelline, Clairol, and Pepsi. She created a line of cosmetics called Meaningful Beauty and has a line of furniture called “Cindy Crawford Home Collection”. She crusades for childhood leukemia and multiple myeloma and is a supporter of the Ronald McDonald house.
6. Lisa Kudrow – 154
This pretty, slightly offbeat actress is also a comedian, writer. and producer. She is best known for her role as Phoebe on the television comedy “Friends”, which ran for ten years. For this role, she won six Emmy Award nominations (winning once) and twelve Screen Actors Guild Award nominations (she won twice).
After “Friends”, she produced and starred in the HBO series “The Comeback. She is one of the executive producers of the reality show “Who Do You Think You Are”. She was also in “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, The Opposite of Sex, Analyze This and its sequel Analyze That, Dr. Dolittle 2, and Wonderland.
What is surprising is that Kidrow earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Vassar College. She intended to research headaches. as her father did. She worked on her father’s staff for eight years and earned a research credit on his study on the likelihood of left-handed people developing cluster headaches.
5. Mayim Bialik – 150-163
This amazing woman is an American actress and a neuroscientist. Bialik earned a B.S. degree in neuroscience and had minors in Hebrew and Jewish studies. She was studying for a doctorate in neuroscience but took a break to return to acting. She did earn her Ph.D. from UCLA in 2007/ Her dissertation was on the investigation of the hypothalamic activity of patients with Prader-Willi syndrome.
She was a child actress in the horror film Pumpkinhead. She also had guest appearances on The Facts of Life and Beauty and the Beast. She played on three episodes of MacGyver and was in the movie Beaches portraying Bette Midler’s character as a young girl. From 1991 to 1995, she played the character Blossom of the show with the same title. Between 1995 and 2005, she did mostly voice-over work for cartoons.
Since 2010 she has played Dr .Amy Farrah Fowler, a neuroscientist, just like the actress, on the comedy series The Big Bang Theory. She has been nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series,[ and she won a Critic’s Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
She has written a book entitled Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way. She is an active blogger on the website kveller, where she blogs about Judaism and parenting.
4. Conan O’Brien – 160
This American television host, comedian, and television producer was raised in an Irish Catholic family. O’Brien attended Harvard University, majoring in American History. He was president of The Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, and he wrote for the comedy series Not Necessarily the News. He was a writer for Saturday Night Live and was a writer and producer for The Simpsons for two seasons.
At that time, he took over David Letterman’s position hosting Late Night. He credited The Simpsons with saving him at a time when he was experiencing a career slump before being hired for the show. It was actually a surprise when O’Brien was picked for Late Night, as many had applied and auditioned for the position, and he was relatively unknown. His contract was renewed every 13 weeks until he proved himself.
After four years, NBC gave him a sizable five-year contract.
3. Matt Damon – 160
Damon is something of an enigma. He is talented, intelligent, nice to look at, and an every-day kind of guy. He is one of the highest-grossing actors of all time and is also a producer and screenwriter.
At Harvard, he appeared in student theater plays. His acting debut was in Mystic Pizza in 1988. In 1997, he played the lead in The Rainmaker. He also wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting with Ben Affleck, for which they won the Academy and Golden Globe awards for Best Screenplay, and Damon was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In 1998, he had a role in Saving Private Ryan, was in The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1999, played a fallen angel in Dogma and an Irish-American criminal in The Departed in 2006. He co-starred in Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 film Ocean’s Eleven.
He may be best known, however, for his portrayal of Jason Bourne in the action thrillers, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Jason Bourne.
Damon has established two production companies with Affleck, his friend since age 8.
He is active in charitable work, including the ONE Campaign, H2O Africa Foundation, Feeding America, and Water.org.
Damon insists he’s completely normal. He is a self-confessed family man and has a rule that they will never be apart for more than two weeks while he’s filming.
2. Dolph Lundgren – 166
This Swedish actor, director, martial artist, screenwriter, and producer earned his degree in chemistry from Washington State University, a degree in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology, and a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney. While in Sydney, he was a bouncer in a nightclub. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but before he moved, he was hired by a Jamaican singer as her bodyguard and became her lover. The two moved to New York. He says, “My dad always told me that if I wanted to make something special with my life, I had to go to America.”
In New York, he studied drama during the day and “\hun out” with Andy Warhol, Andie MacDowell, ahd Tom Hulce.
During his years of studying, he practiced karate by training in the dojo for five years. He holds the rank of 3rd dan black belt in Kyokushin karate and was European champion in 1980-81.
Lundgren’s big breakt came when he starred in Rocky IV in 1985 as the Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. Since then, he has starred in more than 40 action films including Masters of the Universe, Universal Soldier, Joshua Tree, and Johnny Mnemonic.
1. James Wood – 184
This American actor never steps away from a challenging role. He is versatile and talented.
He studied political science at MIT before dropping out to pursue acting. He started in the theater with dramatic roles on the New York stage. He got his first major role in The Visitors in 1972. He made a string of guest appearances on television series such as Barnaby Jones, Family, The Rockford Files and The Streets of San Francisco. In The Onion Field filmed in 1979, he played a heartless cop killer in a riveting performance. His first Oscar nomination was for Salvador in 1986.
He lost the Best Actor Oscar Award to Paul Newman but continued to tackle a variety of dramatic roles in films and on television. He starred in The Boost, as a man whose life is out of control because of cocaine. He has played a number of famous people in television movies, including the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous in My Name Is Bill W. and the famous lawyer Roy Cohn in Citizen Cohn. He won the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries for both of these. His portrayal of an African-American civil rights activist in Ghosts of Mississippi earned him his second Oscar nomination, this time for best supporting actor.
In 2006, Woods made the leap to series television with the legal drama, Shark.
He has given voice to animated characters in The Simpsons, Family Guy, and in films such as Disney’s Hercules and Stuart Little 2 (as Falcon).
Woods is an antique dealer in Rhode Island, an avid video game player and poker player and has played in cash games and many tournaments.
So there you have some surprising facts about some of the people that we see on the screen. These ten have sides that many people never knew about. They are all intelligent and most have studied for quite different areas than acting. It is true that each person has a story. And you thought they were just actors!
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