Here's what 60 celebrities looked like in high school (2025)

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Patricia Arquette rocked a dramatic haircut in high school.

Arquette went to Catholic school, and even wanted to become a nun when she grew up, she told NPR.

Ted Danson played basketball at his Connecticut boarding school and called himself a "frustrated athlete."

Danson told the Washington Post that he was probably a "frustrated athlete." He continued, "I mean, I love basketball with a burning passion, it's what got me through high school. I may not be an athlete, but I feel I have the soul of an athlete."

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Jerry Seinfeld graduated from Massapequa High School in Long Island, New York, in the '70s, while rocking a very '70s hairdo.

Seinfeld graduated from high school in 1972. He and fellow Massapequa native Alec Baldwin did an episode of "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" in their shared hometown, and even paid a visit to their favorite diner.

Gwen Stefani has always been interested in music.

"I was the opposite of rebellious when I was a teen," Stefani told Sweety High in 2017. "I was very peaceful and easy and passive. I always had that one friend and I discovered music. Kind of like everybody, when you find that music that defines who you are, you kind of relate to it."

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus did theater in high school.

While the "Veep" star was in high school, she watched "Saturday Night Live" religiously with her family. Just a few years later, during her junior year of college, she was cast on the show.

Stephen Colbert barely graduated high school after experiencing the tragic death of his father and two of his brothers at age 10.

Colbert told GQ in 2015 that he "barely graduated" from his Charleston, South Carolina, prep school, the Porter-Gaud School. Instead of doing homework, he would read books. "I read a book a day. Spent all of my allowance on books. Every birthday, confirmation, Christmas — books, please, stacks of books," he told the magazine.

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"Queer Eye" star Karamo Brown attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of the Parkland school shooting.

"When I saw on the news a few weeks back that my alma mater was being called the site of the world's deadliest school massacre, you all cannot imagine how much my heart broke," Brown said at the March For Our Lives in 2018.

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Bob Odenkirk's friends used to call him "Bobnoxious" in high school.

Odenkirk grew up in Naperville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. According to Chicago Mag, Odenkirk "hated school," but was a good student.

He graduated at 16 and began attending the College of DuPage immediately after.

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Chris Pratt was voted class clown in high school.

Dave Bautista wasn't the only wrestler in "Guardians of the Galaxy." Pratt wassomeone who got along with all of his classmates, and participated in wrestling, track, and football at Lake Stevens high in Washington. He even placed fifth in the state wrestling competition his senior year in 1997. When he wasn't playing sports, he was making burgers at a bingo hall part-time.

He hasn't forgotten about his high school. He worked ona documentary on his school's wrestling teamwhich premiered at ESPN's film festival. Pratt also gave back to his high school by raising funds for a recreation center.

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Halle Berry was prom queen in high school, but it didn't come easily.

According to People, Berry beat out a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, and she and her friends were accused of faking votes. Only after a coin toss was Berry named queen.

"I felt like I was accepted there until it came to being prom queen," said Berry. "It took me a long time to get over it."

Throughout high school, Berry was a good student. The actress was a cheerleader, in the Honor Society, and an editor for the school paper.

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Matthew McConaughey was voted the most handsome in his class.

McConaughey played golf and tennis at Longview High School in Texas. He was also in theyearbook and Pan Am clubs.

He told GQ hisfirst job in high school involved raking sand traps starting at 3 a.m. at a country club. Sometimes he had to shoot and kill armadillos that were on the golf course.

Anna Faris said she didn't date until senior year of high school.

"I liked guys, but no one really liked me," Faris told People magazine in 2001. Instead, the "Mom" actress said she considered herself a drama club "dork."

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Reese Witherspoon went to an all-girls high school in Nashville, Tennessee.

Witherspoon went by her real name Laura Jeane in school and has described herself as one of the popular nerdy girls who loved books growing up and received good grades.

"I was a big dork who read loads of books," Witherspoon told The Times in 2006. "But I was a popular dork because I learned how to be funny."

Witherspoon was extremely busy in high school. Not only was she dividing her time between cheerleading,Spanish club, and Amnesty International, but she alsostarted acting. At 14, she tried out for a background role in "The Man in the Moon," butended up cast as the lead, a tomboy teenwho fell in love with her 17-year-old neighbor.

Comedian Will Ferrell was voted best personality.

Ferrell also read the school announcements in the mornings over the PA system at University High School in Irvine, California. He played soccer, basketball, baseball, and football — he even set a school record for most field goals.

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Tina Fey worked on the school newspaper.

In her book "Bossypants," Fey recalled how she was a night box office manager at a youth theater program in 11th grade. The "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" co-creator was also in choir singing alto, though she was sometimes a second soprano.

According to Time, she was also on the tennis team and was an honor student.

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Her pal Amy Poehler played basketball, softball, and soccer.

In her book "Yes, Please," Poehler says she lost the athletic bug once she realized she "would never be great" so she started some other extracurriculars.

"I was a cheerleader for a while. I did student council," she wrote. "I started to hang with the popular crowd but was never considered the prettiest or most interesting. I tended to blend."

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Will Smith got his "Fresh Prince" moniker in high school.

Smith started rapping at a young age.When he was 16, he met Jeff Townes and the duo started rapping together under the names DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. His first album came out when he was a senior.

Smith later ended up naming his production company Overbrook Entertainmentafter his high school.

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Blake Lively was quite the busy bee in high school.

"I was class president, on the cheerleading squad, in a competitive show choir, and in, like, six different clubs," Lively told Cosmopolitanin 2008.

Lively, who took AP courses, alsofound time to film "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" during her junior and senior years.

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Her husband, Ryan Reynolds, on the other hand, didn't make it through drama class.

The star failed his drama course in high school. Still, that didn't stop him from eventually getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bruce Willis' classmates said acting helped improve his stutter.

"I had a horrible stutter when I was a kid, from the time I was 9 until the time I was about 17. And a miraculous thing happened when I was in high school," he told Reader's Digest. "I was doing this goofy play. It wasn't a goofy play, we just did it in a goofy way. 'Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.' When I got onstage, I stopped stuttering. When I stepped off the stage, I started stuttering again. And I went, 'This is a miracle. I got to investigate this more.'"

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Amy Adams didn't really enjoy school, but she was always working.

She told The Hollywood Reporter her real passion was dance and she pursued that after high school instead of furthering her education before she began acting.

"I didn't go to the university because there weren't options in my family. And I stopped the athletic options. I was supposed to stick with track because I was really quick and I could run fast, but I told them, 'I want to dance,'" said Adams in 2008. "I taught kids when I was in high school. That's how I paid for my dance classes. I worked in a dance-wear store. I just waited to get out of school. I wasn't one of those people who enjoyed being in school."

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George Clooney was on the varsity baseball and basketball teams.

Clooney told Larry King he had bell's palsy, where half of his face was paralyzed, when he first started high school at age 13.

"It takes about nine months to go away," said Clooney. "It was the first year of high school, which was a bad time for having half your face paralyzed."

Clooney told NPR it forced him to make fun of himself, which is an important part of being famous.

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His buddy Brad Pitt was one of the popular kids and was voted best dressed.

According to "Brad Pitt, Biography of a Superstar," Pitt received good grades while playing tennis, golf, and being a part of the debate team. Pitt also acted in school plays and musicals. Despite being in the movie "Moneyball," Pitt wasn't a baseball player, but he did play a few other sports.

"Baseball and I didn't get along that well,"he told Sports Illustrated. "I wrestled one year. I dove one year. Everything but baseball."

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Oprah Winfrey was voted most popular.

Winfrey attended several different high schools growing up. She graduated from East High School in Nashville, Tennessee, where she was in the Honor Society, National Forensic League, and was in the student government.

On an episode of her talk show, Oprah told her audience that she was voted most popular during the first year the school was desegregated, though it was still 80% white students.

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Ben Affleck had nearly perfect SAT scores.

Though Affleck was a brainy kid, The New York Times said the "Justice League" actor's grades varied because he was often absent and uninterested in school.

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Matt Damon attended high school with his good friend, Affleck.

Damon participated in theater classes in high school and performed in some of the school's productions. In 2010, he told Parade it was his friendship with Ben Affleck that encouraged and inspired his acting.

"We obsessed over acting," said Damon, who was convinced by Affleck to sign up with a casting agency at the age of 16. "I know it's odd. But Ben was my best friend. We shared this dream. We enabled each other. Without Ben, I wouldn't have known where to start."

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Julia Roberts was in her school band and played the clarinet.

Robertstold Access Hollywood she definitely wasn't one of the popular kids.

"[I was] just mediocre, just getting through the hallways with my girlfriend Paige," said Roberts in 2011. "We weren't losers, but we weren't popular, we were just coasting."

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Sandra Bullock was a cheerleader in high school.

"I had no idea what I was cheering about," Bullock told Jimmy Kimmel of her time on the squad. "I was not well-versed in basketball terminology. But, I had spirit and I was a good bottom [of] the pyramid."

According to People, Bullock was voted by her senior class as "Most likely to brighten your day."

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Tom Hanks was not popular in high school.

Hanks told Rolling Stone he was a "geek" as a kid. "I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible."

According to Matt Green's "The Amazing Life of Tom Hanks," he was in high school performances of "South Pacific" and "Twelfth Night" andwon his high school's best acting award in 1974.

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Jennifer Lopez went to an all-girls Catholic high school.

According to "Jennifer Lopez: The Great Hispanic Heritage," Lopez said she wasn't the most popular girl.

"I had my friends, but I was comfortable with myself. There's always those most popular girls and I wasn't one of those," said Lopez.

While in high school, she landed a part in her first movie, the 1987 indie film "My Little Girl" where she played a teen who was being tutored.

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Alex Rodriguez played football, and was really good at it.

Rodriguez was a quarterback at Westminster Christian Academy starting his junior year. He also played baseball.

He was so good at football that the eventual Yankees star was recruited in college for both baseball and football.

Leonardo DiCaprio dropped out of high school.

DiCaprio left John Marshall High School in Los Feliz, California, after his junior year to focus on acting. He got his GED later in life.

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Meryl Streep was the homecoming queen when she was 17.

Streep went to Bernards High School in Somerset County, New Jersey, where she was a cheerleader, and participated in plays like "Oklahoma!" and "The Music Man." She also did gymnastics among a long list of extracurriculars, but in no way would she have considered herself the popular girl.

Streep turned to magazines like Seventeen and Vogue to transform herself in high school, and opened up about her evolution during a 2010 commencement speech at Barnard College.

"Empathy is at the heart of the actor's art," said Streep. "And in high school, another form of acting took hold of me. I wanted to learn how to be appealing. So I studied the character I imagined I wanted to be, that of the generically pretty high school girl."

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Snoop Dogg played some football in high school.

According to "Snoop Dogg — Biography of Calvin Cordozar Broadus,"the rapper played football for two years at Long Beach Poly High School. But Snoop Dogg also was involved with drugs, and, following graduation, was in and out of jail for several years.

Snoop Dogg andCameron Diaz actually attended the same school, though he was a grade above her. On an episode of George Lopez's old late show,she claimed that he once sold her some weed. For his part, Snoop said it probably happened.

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His classmate Cameron Diaz was a cheerleader.

Diaz started her modeling career as a 16-year-old high school student. In June 1990, she was featured on the cover of Seventeen. According to the magazine, she dreamed of being a zoologist and studying lions, but imagined she would model "until I'm old and gray."

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Emma Stone dropped out of high school after one semester.

Stone started acting when she was 11 and after appearing in multiple theater productions in middle school, dropped out of high school in her freshman year to pursue acting.

According to an interview from 2009, she made a PowerPoint presentation to convince her parents of her dream to move to Los Angeles called, "Project Hollywood."

"I was like 14. It had the Madonna song 'Hollywood,'" said Stone. "I was trying to prove the point that I needed to move to Hollywood and be an actor in movies."

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Nicolas Cage said he was a straight-A student until he moved in with his famous uncle, director Francis Coppola.

Cage told the New York Times in the early '90s he was a straight-A student until he moved in with his uncle Francis Coppolafor a year after his parents divorced and he went to a small country school.

"I went suddenly from being the cool guy to the geek. My grades went from straight A's to straight F's," he said. "I was in this wonderful house with wonderfully generous people, but it wasn't my stuff, it wasn't my house. I didn't know why I was there. I was frustrated beyond belief."

Natalie Portman was a straight-A student and has some serious science cred.

Portman told Marie Claire in 2009 she wasn't one of the kids who went to high school parties. Instead, while at Syosset High School on Long Island, Portman competed in the Intel Science Talent Search, which is considered one of the most demanding research competitions for high school students. The Oscar-winning actress even made it to the semifinals.

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Ellen DeGeneres wasn't fond of school.

"I hated school," she told New Orleans magazine in July 1994. "I started college because everyone else was going. I majored in communications, I think. Or communications and drama. And I just remember sitting in there, and they were talking about the history of the Greek theater or something, and thinking, 'This is not what I want to know.'"

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Jack Nicholson was a bit of a troublemaker.

The actor told The Independentin 1993 he made a record out of getting in trouble at school.

"I was always against authority, hated being told anything by my teachers, by parents, by anyone," said Nicholson. "At school I created a record by being in detention every day for a whole year."

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Melissa McCarthy went from preppy to goth in high school.

In high school, she went by the name Missy and was a cheerleader, tennis player, and was on student council. As a junior and senior, McCarthy started dressing in black and "piercing her ears with safety pins."

The actress told Anderson Cooperthe transformation happened in one summer. She went from having a bob to dyeing her hair blue and black. McCarthy said much of it was more for show.

"I was pretty lame, though, and much more of a goody-two-shoes than I looked," she told Rolling Stone. "Maybe occasionally I'd make out with some guy, but never anything further. I was usually the dork surrounded by a bunch of my gay friends."

"I acted like a maniac and looked like a really angry, violent punk," she added. "But I was always too chatty to be really angry."

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Renée Zellweger participated in a lot of school activities.

Her high school boyfriend, Rhett Baker, told the DailyMail in 2014 that Zellweger was a well-rounded, popular varsity cheerleader and track runner.

"She was in multiple crowds because she was very good at multiple things," said Baker."People respected that. She didn't flaunt that."

"When you put her on stage she had the biggest personality in the room," he added. "Beyond that she was much more reserved than a lot of people and that was one of the things even back then a lot of people would talk about."

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Jamie Foxx originally wanted to be a football player.

Matt Green writes in "The Amazing Life of Jamie Foxx," that the actorwas popular with teachers and classmates.

Foxx, whose real name is Eric Marlon Bishop, had aspirations to play for the Dallas Cowboys. In high school, he played basketball and was a quarterback on the football team.

However, music was also a big part of his life. Foxx was also a part-time pianist and choir leader at his baptist church. In addition, he was in a short-lived band called Leather and Lace.

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Jessica Chastain dropped out of high school.

"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," Chastain told Entertainment Weekly.

Chastain said she often skipped school and sat in her car reading Shakespeare.

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Robert Downey Jr. also dropped out of high school.

According to "Born to Be an Actor," Downey Jr. had poor grades and school attendance coupled with drug and alcohol use. When he was told at the end of 11th grade he'd have to attend summer school to graduate, he decided to drop out to pursue an acting career in New York.

"For me, you know, growing up in school was just, you know, smoking pot all the time," said Downey Jr. in a CNN profile. "I consider myself someone who needs to express himself creatively, and acting seems to be the most lucrative and attention-getting way of working it out right now."

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Viola Davis gained an interest in acting at high school.

Davis immersed herself in the arts while her family grew up in poverty. The actress told the AV Club she performed plays in high school and skits in the park. She also entered in high-school theater competitions.

"I was a theater geek, I was a complete nerd," said Davis. "I would take knitting classes and crocheting classes at the local community center, because it was something to do," she added.

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Her "Fences" co-star Denzel Washington went to a private all-boys high school that he said changed his life.

Washington spent his early years working in a barbershop and with The Boys & Girls Club of America (then called Boys Club). When his parents started drifting apart, he began acting out and getting into fights in school.

After his parents divorced, Washington's mother sent him to a private boy's high school and he said it was one of the best things that could have happened to him.

"I wouldn't have survived in the direction I was going," Denzel told Parade magazine in 1999. "The guys I was hanging out with at the time, my running buddies, have now done maybe 40 years combined in the penitentiary. They were nice guys, but the streets got them."

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Elizabeth Banks had brown wavy locks in high school.

The "Charlie's Angels" star won the award for class couple before she graduated in 1992. The actress participated in cheerleading, choir, and Latin Club.

Though she won class couple, she actually ended up marrying hercollege sweetheart, Max Handelman.

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Bill Murray worked jobs as a teen to pay for his Catholic school tuition.

One of his jobs involved making $3.50 per bag as a golf caddyat the Indian Hill Club in Winnetka, Illinois.

During high school, he was also in a rock band called The Dutch Masters. Murray also performed in both high school and community theater productions, and was reportedly a member of chess club.

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Robin Williams was voted least likely to succeed and most humorous.

The comedian was shy, but enjoyed high school. Williams played a variety of sports including football and wrestling. He also was on the track team and broke a relay record at Redwood High School in California. He told the Detroit Free Press in 1996 that he loved school.

"I can't say it was easy to fit in. I just went out of my way to fit in," he said. "It was a private boys school, Detroit Country Day, and I played soccer. I was on the wrestling team. Mr. All-Around, you know?"

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Macklemore started rapping in high school with a name he came up with for an art project.

The singer started writing lyrics in high schooland went by the name Professor Macklemore, a name he came up with for a project.

Freshman year, he went toGarfield high in Seattle, the same one Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones attended, where he and some students started a group called Elevated Elements that performed around town. His parents transferred him after a year when Macklemore started getting into drugs.

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Kesha was writing her own music back in high school.

The singer went by Kesha Serbert when she attended Brentwood High School in Tennessee. Her senior year, she dressed up as Ginger Spice alongside friends for a Spice Girls' performance.

"I've been singing forever, and I write my own music that I sing," she was quoted in her school's yearbook.

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Paul Rudd still looks really young compared to his high school yearbook photos.

Rudd worked at the mall like many teens and decided to pursue acting in high school.

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Lady Gaga always had dreams of making it big.

She may be known as Mother Monster now, but in high school, she was Stefani Germanotta. According to the school's 2004 yearbook, she had nicknames, including Stefi and "The Germ."

She wrote that she one day dreamedof headlining at Madison Square Garden. Mission accomplished.

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Chadwick Boseman was on the basketball team in high school before he became interested in acting.

The late "Black Panther" star played on the varsity team all four years of high school.

During the film's press tour, Boseman said he saw and faced racism head-on in high school and saw Confederate flags on trucks. Basketball inspired him to begin acting.

"One of my friends on that team was shot and killed," Boseman told Elle in 2018. "My emotional response was to start writing. So I wrote — essentially it was a play. I was just writing about how the community allowed this to happen. I got my friends together; we performed it. I had never done anything quite like that before. It wasn't like I'd been doing 'Oliver Twist.'"

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Farrah Fawcett was voted most beautiful three times in a row.

Fawcett graduated in 1965.

Her romantic partner of nearly 30 years, Ryan O'Neal, described her as someone who didn't let anyone step all over her.

"There's a strange stubbornness in her. She won't take s---," O'Neal told Vanity Fair after her 2009 death. "She didn't in high school; she didn't in college; she didn't from Hollywood moguls. She had a stubborn streak of pride and righteousness."

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Alec Baldwin played on the football team.

The "30 Rock" star was also on the lacrosse team and was class president. He graduated in 1976.

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Brie Larson graduated from school at 15.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Larson dreamed of becoming a magician or Egyptologist, but she started her acting career nearly a decade before graduating high school at 15.

At age 6, she was attending the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California. Three years later, her first job was appearing in sketches with Jay Lenofor "The Tonight Show." A year after graduating, she released an album called "Finally Out of P.E."

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Jake Gyllenhaal was in a boy band and said he was made fun of for his love of theater.

Gyllenhaal told Ellen DeGeneres he was a lyricist for a high school band, Holeshot. The "Velvet Buzzsaw" actor also described himself as a "nerd" to Magic Radio, citing the really thick glasses he wore.

"I was constantly made fun of [because] I was a performer," said Gyllenhaal during an interview for "Demolition." "I played sports, but the fact that I loved to sing or that I loved to act and stuff, [I was] constantly made fun of."

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Madonna was a straight-A student.

The Queen of Pop was also a cheerleader.

The singer received a dance scholarship to University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. She later dropped out of the school to pursue music.

• Read more:
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• 15 celebrity couples that met their soulmates when they were just teenagers
• What 19 celebrities looked like at their high school prom
• 48 celebrities you didn't know went to school together