Education is fundamental, but not everyone takes the same path, especially if you are an aspiring actor or model who eventually becomes a household name. While many did eventually receive their diplomas later in life, here are 15 celebrities who actually never finished high school.
1.
Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she dropped out of middle school at the age of 14 to pursue her acting career.
In 2018, she said in an interview with 60 Minutes that she “never felt very smart” until she began reading scripts. “I dropped out of middle school. I don’t technically have a GED or a diploma. I am self-educated.”
After being part of the Mickey Mouse Club at the age of 13, he eventually returned to public school in Canada, as he was not featured as prominently as other cast members, such as Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. However, he ultimately left school to pursue a full-time acting career.
3.
Hilary Swank shared in a 2005 interview with 60 Minutes that she grew up in a trailer park and didn’t finish high school. “I ended up dropping out of high school. I’m a high school dropout, which I’m not proud to say.”
She continued, “I had some teachers that I still think of fondly and were amazing to me. But I had other teachers who said, ‘You know what? This dream of yours is a hobby. When are you going to give it up?’ I had teachers who I could tell didn’t want to be there. And I just couldn’t get inspired by someone who didn’t want to be there.”
4.
Quentin Tarantino shared what motivated him to leave school in the 9th grade in a 2023 episode of The Howard Stern Show. “The moment I quit school, I kept up my self-education pretty much to this day, especially the stuff that I care about.
“The thing that was sad about me quitting school… when you quit in the ninth grade, you don’t understand anything about college. I thought school was going to be like it was then, forever,” Quentin continued. “It would’ve been great to have a college experience. The whole social and learning aspect of it.”
Over the course of the season, while the other cast members were hanging out, Seth was apparently studying for his GED and missing out on all the fun. “I dropped out of high school when I started doing the show. I told them I was doing correspondence school from Canada and just wrote Superbad all day,” Seth said in the interview.
6.
Robert De Niro dropped out of high school at the age of 16 to pursue acting and study at renowned Manhattan institutions, including HB Studio, Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, and the Stella Adler Conservatory.
After working off-Broadway, he would eventually collaborate with Martin Scorsese on Mean Streets in 1973 and also take on the role of Vita Corleone in The Godfather: Part II in 1974, earning him an Academy Award.
7.
Like fellow Godfather Part II actor and frequent collaborator Robert De Niro, Al Pacino also dropped out of school at 16 to immerse himself in the New York theater scene.
To make ends meet as a young, aspiring actor, he held several jobs, including janitor, messenger, switchboard operator, and even usher at Carnegie Hall.
8.
Mark Wahlberg, aka Marky Mark, had a troubled childhood and dropped out in the ninth grade after being sent to prison for attacking a man in 1988.
After serving his time and finding success as an actor, Mark eventually received his diploma at the age of 41 while working on Two Guns with Denzel Washington. “It’s also a huge sense of relief,” he told People. “I wondered, ‘Why didn’t I do it when I was there?’ It’s so much harder at 41 going back and trying to do all these difficult tasks.”
9.
Despite famously portraying a high schooler in Degrassi: The Next Generation, Aubrey Graham, aka Drake, actually dropped out of school to take on the role.
It wasn’t until Drake was 25 years old that he completed his GED and earned his high school diploma. In an interview with NOW Magazine, he said. “I’m actually spending my summer graduating high school. I only have one credit left, and I’m really excited about that.”
10.
Katy Perry left high school at the age of 15 to pursue her music career, and later earned her GED. “I’m kind of bummed at this stage that I didn’t have a great education,” she told Yahoo per ABC News in 2014. “I could really use that these days.”
Katy explained that she was pulled out of school and homeschooled throughout her childhood, learning to educate herself. “I’ve learned to educate myself at this stage and how to continue my education at any age. I’m going on 30 and I’m still very thirsty for information. On tour, we go to different museums and get to soak up all kinds of different cultural experiences.”
She was discovered eating at McDonald’s in a Brazilian shopping center. By the ages of 16 and 17, she was modeling for Oscar de la Renta, Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana, and Versace.
12.
Leonardo DiCaprio began acting as a kid on TV, and as a teenager in movies like This Boy’s Life and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. It was during this time that he reportedly disliked attending John Marshall High School.
Leonardo dropped out of school after his junior year and instead studied at a local drama school, eventually earning his General Equivalency Diploma.
13.
Kate Winslet actually took the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), leaving school early to work as a sandwich maker to help fund her travel back and forth to London for auditions.
“I had finished my school exams, and you see,” she said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, “People often think I must have all these, you know, diplomas and things and rubber stamps next to my name and crests and things and training and all this pedigree. I left school at 16, and I went to work in a delicatessen to save money to get the train to London to go on auditions.”
14.
Robert Downey Jr. wasn’t a huge fan of attending school, admitting to constantly skipping classes and eventually dropping out at the age of 16 to pursue acting full-time.
Talking with his former high school classmate on his podcast, Literally! With Rob Lowe, Robert jokingly revealed that he was more than a little jealous that his longtime friend could balance attending Santa Monica High School with acting. “I want to say I was jealous, but that’s not deep enough,” he said. “I didn’t understand how anyone could get where you were, let alone still have attendance in school. It just seemed like there was something so high-functioning going on that there was no point for me to even attempt to understand it.”
15.
Jessica Chastain had too many absences to graduate from high school because she would often cut class to read Shakespeare in her car.
“Nobody knows this about me. I dropped out of high school,” she said to Entertainment Weekly. “I was not a hard worker. I was a terrible student. Eventually I got my adult diploma, but I did not graduate. And it wasn’t that I just dropped out and never went back—at the end of the year I had too many absences to graduate.”‘
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