Talent and brains! While many stars such as Orlando Bloom, Angelina Jolie and Zac Efron attended drama school, others decided to pursue other passions before (and sometimes after) launching into the spotlight.
Stassi Schroeder, for instance, studied English writing at Loyola Marymount University. Though her career took on a different path when she landed a role on Vanderpump Rules, the New Orleans native ended up putting her degree to good use when she published her first book, Next Level Basic, in April 2019.
“I absolutely love school, I miss classes, and would die to go back,” the reality TV star told Bravo.com in January 2013. “But my parents aren’t too keen on paying for grad school just because I enjoy it!”
Her former costar Tom Schwartz, on the other hand, began his college career studying pre-med at Florida State University — even though he had other dreams. “What I really wanted to do was act,” he told Modent Mag. “I thought, ‘Who am I to think I can be an actor?’ I tried to deny the feeling for a while but then I got into print [modeling] work and the entire being on set thing was really fun.”
During a conversation with Conan O’Brien in October 2014, Jennifer Garner confessed that she was a bit of a free spirit while in school.
“When I was in college, every summer I would work for free at a theater,” the 13 Going on 30 actress said at the time. “I didn’t drink. I was never a big party girl, but I streaked. … I was just in a ‘naked frame of mind’ … I might have been the leader of the streakers and we just all streaked all summer.”
Garner graduated from Denison University, a liberal arts college located in Granville, Ohio, in 1994. Before pursuing a degree in theater, she was a chemistry major.
More recently, Cole Sprouse graduated from New York University in May 2015. While his twin brother, Dylan Sprouse, studied video game design during undergrad, Cole designed his own major so he could study archaeology (or more specifically, geographical information systems and satellite imaging.)
Before he began acting on Riverdale, the Suite Life of Zack and Cody alum made a career of recording artifacts at a lab in Brooklyn.
“The arts called back!” he joked during an October 2017 Live With Kelly and Ryan appearance about his return to acting.
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