Think superhero actors are all brawn and no brains? Think again.
While the Marvel Cinematic Universe might be best known for explosive action sequences and reality-bending special effects, some of the actors behind your favourite characters actually have academic credentials that rival their box office numbers.
We’re talking Ivy League degrees, prestigious drama conservatories, and in one case, an actual architecture degree from UC Berkeley.
If you’re a fan of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), or just enjoy good storytelling overall, you may have heard of their latest release, “Wonder Man”.
“Wonder Man” dropped all eight episodes on Disney+ on January 27, and some critics are calling it “the best Disney+ Marvel show yet” (TIME). Unlike your typical cape-and-cowl fare, this series is more of a Hollywood satire following a struggling actor who can’t get out of his own way.
Fascinatingly, the show stars two actors with seriously impressive academic backgrounds. Here’s who they are:
The education of the main cast of MCU’s “Wonder Man”
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (“Wonder Man”)
UC Berkeley – Bachelor of Architecture
Leading the new Disney+ series as Simon Williams, Abdul-Mateen brings impressive academic credentials.
He earned a Bachelor of Architecture from UC Berkeley, where he competed as a hurdler and was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
After working as a city planner in San Francisco, he pursued his passion for acting at Yale School of Drama in 2015, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree. While there, he received the prestigious Herschel Williams Prize — awarded to acting students with outstanding ability.
He was also accepted to Harvard and NYU but chose Yale.
Talk about a wonder, man.
Ben Kingsley (Trevor Slattery)
Ben Kingsley hardly needs an introduction. The 82-year-old has an incredible five-decade career, after all. In “Wonder Man,” the Oscar-winning actor reprises his role from “Iron Man 3.”
Kingsley attended Manchester Grammar School and studied at Pendleton College (now the Ben Kingsley Theatre) before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company.
While he doesn’t hold a traditional university degree, his education through Britain’s prestigious theatre institutions and honorary degrees from the University of Salford and University of Hull reflect his achievements and impact on the acting world.
The most educated Marvel cast members
Natalie Portman (Jane Foster / Mighty Thor)
Harvard University — Bachelor’s in Psychology.
Portman famously is a Harvard graduate. The actress applied under her real last name “Hershlag” to protect her privacy.
Her professor Alan Dershowitz still cites a paper she wrote debunking lie-detector tests. She’s one of the few actors to have a scientific paper published in a professional journal while still in high school.
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Tom Hiddleston (Loki)
University of Cambridge (Pembroke College) — Double First in Classics.
After graduating from prestigious Eton College, Hiddleston studied classics at Cambridge while also acting in plays and playing rugby. He then earned a degree from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange)
University of Manchester — BA in Drama; London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art — MA in Classical Acting.
After teaching English at a Tibetan monastery in India (yes, we’re talking about Cumberbatch, not the character Dr Strange), Cumberbatch pursued drama at Manchester before completing his master’s at LAMDA, one of the world’s most prestigious acting schools.
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Lupita Nyong’o (Nakia)
Hampshire College — BA in Film and Theatre Studies; Yale School of Drama — MFA in Acting.
Lupita Nyong’o first earned her Bachelor of Arts in Film and Theatre Studies from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. During her time there (around 2003 to 2007), she was involved in film production and created her own documentary, “In My Genes,” which later won first prize at the 2008 Five College Film Festival.
Then, Nyong’o beat out 950 applicants to join Yale’s exclusive 16-person acting programme. Like Abdul-Mateen, she won the prestigious Herschel Williams Prize for outstanding ability.
Chadwick Boseman (T’Challa / Black Panther)
Howard University — BFA in Directing.
The late actor led a student protest to preserve the College of Fine Arts and remained an active alumnus.
After his passing, Howard renamed it the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. He also attended Oxford University’s summer theatre programme on a scholarship co-sponsored by Denzel Washington.
Rest in peace, Black Panther.
Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier)
Rutgers University — BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts.
Originally from Romania, Sebastian Stan studied at one of the nation’s top conservatory programmes for acting before launching his Marvel career. He got his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2005.
During his time at Rutgers, he spent a year studying abroad at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London in 2003.
Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson / The Falcon / Captain America)
Juilliard School — Drama Division.
Anthony Mackie, who grew up in New Orleans, graduated from one of the world’s most prestigious performing arts conservatories, known for its rigorous training and selective admissions.
At 17, Mackie moved to New York City to attend Juilliard. Before graduating in 2001, he played Tupac in an off-Broadway production of “Up Against the Wind.”
It was during his performance that a famous casting director, Mali Finn, saw Mackie’s performance and urged him to audition for “8 Mile.”
He got the role of Papa Doc, and his acting career continued to take off.
Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch)
New York University — BA in Theatre from Tisch School of the Arts.
In 2013, Elizabeth Olsen graduated from New York University, where she majored in drama.
During college, she took classes at Atlantic Theater Company. She also spent a semester at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia, where she reportedly began to take acting more seriously than she had before.
Paul Bettany (Vision)
Drama Centre London.
Though he dropped out before graduating, Bettany trained at one of Britain’s most respected drama schools, known for its intensive method acting approach.
He has spoken about having to navigate his early education and career with dyslexia, which made reading scripts challenging.
Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight)
Juilliard School — BFA in Acting.
Starring in the 2022 series “Moon Knight” on Disney+, Isaac is a Juilliard graduate like Mackie. He completed the school’s rigorous four-year drama programme in 2005.
Before that, though, he studied performing arts at Miami Dade College. It was during a trip to New York City to play a young Fidel Castro in an Off-Broadway production of the play “When it’s Cocktail Time in Cuba” that he managed to successfully audition to study at Juilliard.
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Simu Liu (Shang-Chi)
University of Western Ontario (Ivey Business School) — Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting.
Simu Liu graduated with an Honours Business Administration (HBA) degree from University of Western Ontario.
Before becoming an actor, Simu Liu actually worked as an accountant at Deloitte, one of the Big Four auditing firms. Fascinatingly, he’s one of the few Marvel actors with a business degree rather than an arts background.
The superpower of education
From Ivy League institutions to world-renowned drama schools, the Marvel cast might just represent some of Hollywood’s most academically accomplished actors – after all, the MCU has expanded so much over the years.
And this year, all eyes will be on the Marvel cast again as they gather again for “Avengers: Doomsday,” set to release by the end of the 2026.
It’s not that you need a Yale MFA to make it in Hollywood (though it certainly doesn’t hurt your odds). It’s that education — whether that’s a psychology degree from Harvard, an architecture background from Berkeley, or classical training at Cambridge — might just change how these actors approach their craft.
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