SHOCKING! Former child actors turned geeks!

If for some unforgivable reason you get your only news from gossip magazines, you might have been led to believe that all child actors grow up to star in crappy reality shows, collect criminal records for drunk driving or drug possession, or go completely insane altogether. Clearly, being on screen as a child is a no-refund ticket to a messed up life.

Not really! Here are some young actors who ended up in math or science instead of on Page Six.

Have you ever watched The Wonder Years? Danica McKellar, the actress who played Winnie, is not only still acting to this day, but she managed to find time to get a math degree, have a mathematical theorem named after her (update: explained here), and write a book about math for girls. She tries to teach girls that being good at math does not necessarily make you uncool, and that you can be pretty AND smart at the same time.

Natalie Portman was only 13 when many people first saw her in Leon, and she shot Star Wars Episode I while still in high school. Then she went to Harvard to study psychology and got her name on a neuroscience paper before going back to acting full-time.

Neuroscience and acting seem to go together well. At least, that’s what another actor-turned-scientist said. In the words of Mayim Bialik, aka Blossom, who studied neuroscience at UCLA, and is now working on her PhD.: “I’d like to think that even as a neuroscientist, you’re constantly engaging creativity in new ways & tapping into [your] more artistic side, because you’re telling a story with your thesis,”

And what about the little actors we never hear from again, like Danny Lloyd — the kid from The Shining? Well, he ended up teaching college biology.
(He’s traceable on Google, like most people who teach, but I won’t link to his institution because he really seems to have put his acting days far behind him. His students rate him an overall 4.4 (out of 5) on RateMyProfessors.com, if you must know.)