14 Impressively Intelligent Celebrities Who Studied Law, Medicine, Or Dentistry
Your college major doesn't always determine the future of your career. In fact, plenty of people wind up never using their degrees at all.
Here are 14 celebs who attended medical, law, or dental school (and if they graduated):
1.Bridgit Mendler graduated with her JD from Harvard Law in 2024.
A few months ahead of her graduation, she announced her new position as CEO of Norwood Space.
On Twitter, she said, "We have our sights on building a data highway between earth and space. We are designing shared ground infrastructure from first principles to expand access to space."
2.For his undergrad, Ken Jeong was a pre-med major at Duke University. He went to UNC-Chapel Hill for medical school then practiced medicine for several years before going into acting full-time.
Taking a drama class sophomore year inspired him to double major in drama, but he ultimately dropped the idea on his dad's advice. However, his dad gave him an ultimatum — if he got into medical school, he'd "give him the opportunity to develop his hobby and go anywhere in the world to develop his hobby."
Ken continued doing college theater on the side, then during the summer between undergrad and medical school, his dad paid for him to take theater classes at UCLA.
During medical school, he got into stand-up comedy. It paid off — he won an important comedy contest during his residency at a New Orleans hospital.
His medical experience actually helped him land his breakout role as Dr. Kuni in 2007's Knocked Up. Around the time the movie premiered, he decided to pursue entertainment full-time.
3.Sofía Vergara went to dental school for two years.
In 2016, she told Harry, "I wanted to be a doctor, but...years ago in Colombia, that wasn't, like, an option, because you were thinking about getting married, having kids, and you know, being a doctor takes so much time — years of study. It's difficult. So the next best thing for me at that time was to be a dentist, so I went to dentist school, but I didn't finish."
With two semester left, she quit school for a job as a TV host.
4.Gerard Butler earned his law degree from the University of Glasgow, where he was the Law Society president. Before his last year, he took a gap year in the US, where he traveled, took odd jobs, and — as he told Esquire in 2009 — "kept getting arrested for stupid stuff — basically just being too drunk."
In 2018, he told The Late Show with Stephen Cobert, "I studied law for five years, and then I trained as a lawyer for two years...I trained with this big firm in Scotland — the Queen's solicitors, Andrew Carnegie's estate. But I went in, I actually almost missed my...They were the last big firm to interview, and I missed my interview because of my last exam. I got completely drunk, and I woke up, missed the interview...Missed this big interview. I thought, 'I'll just tell my mum I went in and didn't get it.' So I called them and said, 'I'm so sorry I missed it.' They said, 'No, you can still make it. Get on a train.' So I have to get on a train, and I go there, and I'm so hungover. And I ended up getting the job. Three of us got the job out of like 175 people or something."
However, he was "desperately unhappy" in the job and ended up losing it.
He told Esquire, "I became quite infamous in Scottish legal circles. It's very difficult to be fired as a trainee lawyer — they just don't qualify you at the end of two years. But they actually fired me one week before I was due to qualify. I should have seen it coming. The Edinburgh Festival was going. I knew I wasn't going to make it through the festival because it's crazy — comedy festivals, music festivals, dancing festivals, and, more than anything, drinking festivals. The city is aglow. I went to see a production of Trainspotting. The lead character acts in the scene, steps back and narrates, and then jumps back into the scene. The guy playing the lead role was phenomenal. It was such an incredible atmosphere. And I'm dying inside. This is the life I wanted to live. 'I can do this. I know I can do this. But it's past now. It's gone. I'm 25. I missed that opportunity.' A week later, they fire me."
He moved to London, where he knew a casting director. He worked in telemarketing, but she let him help her hand out pages for a Steven Berkoff play. When Gerard ran into Steven, he asked to read for the production and ended up getting the lead role.
5.Gemma Chan earned her law degree from Oxford University. She had the opportunity to train at the law firm Slaughter and May, but she turned it down to work as a model instead. She secretly applied to drama school and spent a year saving up to study acting.
In 2019, she told Modern Luxury magazine, "It is quite helpful with the memorization. I had to learn about 2,000 cases by heart, so I am fairly good at learning scripts quickly. On the whole, it is quite a different part of the brain: Law is very analytical, and acting is more instinctive and emotionally driven. But, it does come in handy with learning lines ― and reading my own contract."
6.In 2009, Rebel Wilson graduated from the University of New South Wales with a Bachelor of Laws as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Performance Studies. She decided to pursue acting in tandem with the law because, during her gap year in Africa between high school and university, she "got malaria really, really badly, and [she] hallucinated that [she] was an actress and that [she] was really good."
In 2022, she told Today, "I come back to Australia and said, 'Guys, I'll go to law school as well, but I think I've got to pursue acting too because I had the vision.'"
After graduating, she moved to the US to pursue acting.
However, her education wasn't wasted. In 2011, she told News.com.au, "I'm sensible in real life. I read. In some cases, I even negotiate my own contracts. My law degree comes in handy."
7.Rashida Jones "wanted to be a lawyer, maybe a judge, maybe run for president," so she enrolled in Harvard Law. However, she left her program after becoming disillusioned by the outcome of the OJ Simpson trial.
In 2014, she told the Independent, "I was in college and the OJ Simpson trial was going on and that was an incredibly culturally contentious moment. He got off and I couldn't believe it – I thought what's the point of spending the next eight years in school if the justice system is that broken?"
8.Mad Max creator George Miller did his residency at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. During his final year of medical school, he made a short film and "immediately got hooked." So, while working as a doctor, he continued pursuing his interest in moviemaking.
In 2016, he told The World, "There was a whole cohort of people who were just basically driven by enthusiasm…and suddenly an industry and I got caught up in that, always with the intention of going back and working as a doctor. I kept working as a doctor while I was making films, basically to earn a living."
The first Mad Max movie hit theaters in 1979, but George actually kept working as a doctor until the mid-'80s. Realizing he no longer had time for both, he, of course, chose to make filmmaking his full-time career.
9.In 1968, Jerry Springer graduated from the Northwestern University School of Law. He went on to work in politics.
First, he got a job with Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, then he started his own political career in Cincinnati. He served as a city council member then mayor. In 1982, he tried and failed to get nominated for Ohio governor, so he pivoted to TV journalism.
He started out as a local reporter and anchor. Then, in 1991, he began hosting The Jerry Springer Show. His talk show actually started as a politics-centered program before it was reconstructed into the "trash TV" format that made it famous.
10.Author/screenwriter/filmmaker Michael Crichton — whose accomplishments include writing Jurassic Park and creating ER — graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1969. To help pay for school, he wrote "thrillers of the James Bond‐type" under the pen names John Lange or Jeffery Hudson. He also took his typewriter and worked on writing during classes he didn't like.
On his official website, he wrote, "When I was in college, I wanted to be a writer. But then I read that only two hundred writers in America support themselves writing. I thought, 'That's an awfully small group.' I didn't want to be a part-time writer with a day job—that didn't interest me. I either had to be one of those two hundred people or forget it. So I decided to become a doctor. I was attracted to medicine partly because I thought I would be doing useful work, helping people—I would never have to wonder if the work was worthwhile.
But many working physicians are not convinced at all. They have all kinds of doubts, which troubled me. I also found that I was at odds with the thrust of the profession at the time, which was highly scientific medicine: the physician as technician and the patient as biological machine that was broken. I didn't find it appealing to work in that kind of setting."
11.Singer/songwriter Jay Sean attended Queen Mary's School of Medicine. He dropped out shortly after signing a ￡1 million recording contract with Virgin.
In 2003, he told the London Evening Standard, "My dad said, 'You know what, you got into medical school through working hard. I'm sure you can make a success of a music industry career as well, so go for it.'"
12.Petticoat Junction actor Edgar Buchanan graduated from the North Pacific College School of Dentistry [now the Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry] in 1928. He worked as a dentist to provide for his family while getting his acting career off the ground.
In 1964, he told the Deseret News, "Being an actor is all I've ever really wanted. You know, I was a dentist in Oregon? My father was a dentist, and my wife Mildred was a dentist. We got married before we even graduated dental school...Mildred and me, we've got a fine 17-year-old boy who wants to be an actor, and why not? Sure beats being a dentist. I was getting a game leg standing on my feet all day."
13.Monty Python member Graham Chapman studied medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. After graduation in 1962, he took a year off to tour with his drama revue, the Cambridge Circus. Then, he attended St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College. He graduated in 1966 but never practiced medicine.
However, his medical training proved useful a few years later when he was a writer on the sitcom Doctor in the House.
14.And finally, growing up, Julio Iglesias "wanted to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer." So, he briefly pursued a law degree at the University of Madrid before becoming a goalie for Real Madrid. However, in 1963, he was in a car accident that resulted in a sports career-ending spinal injury. Upon his recovery, he went to Cambridge University, where he studied language by day and sang in pubs at night. He dropped out to take his then-girlfriend to Spain for the summer.
During his short stint at Cambridge, he wrote his first song, "La vida sigue igual," which went on to win a Spanish song competition. From there, he released his debut album, represented Spain at Eurovision, and went on to become a musical icon.
