So when one Quora user posed the below question of "How Intelligent is Natalie Portman?" while at the same time giving her impressive academic bio, we were curious to hear the answer.
Here's what one user, who overlapped with Portman at Harvard, had to say:
Basically, she's one of those rare humans who possesses an unfair amount of both beauty and brains.
And if you don't believe Quora user Michael Bodell, just ask Portman's past professors at Harvard.
“It was very clear when she was a student that she is a very determined person and capable of focused effort over a sustained period,” Former Harvard Psychology Professor and Dean of the Social Sciences Stephen M. Kosslyn, who worked with Portman when she was a research assistant in his lab, told The Harvard Crimson after she won an Oscar in 2011. “She is now demonstrating the results of that determination and focus.”
Harvard Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz also considered Portman an exceptional student.
“She was in my seminar called Neuropsychology and the Law, and I didn’t know who she was because her name was Natalie Hershlag,” he said, referring to Portman’s birth name. “It was a few weeks into the semester that I learned she was an actress—but she was a terrific student.”
Portman earned an A+ from Dershowitz on her paper on new methods of lie detection and he later hired her as a research assistant for a book he was writing.
And in spite of her smarts, Portman still has a sense of humor about herself. Watch below.