10 Celebrities Who Never Finished High School

Seth Rogen dropped out of Vancouver's Point Grey High School—in order to play a high school student on TV! That's exactly what happened when Rogen landed the role of a stoner student (which, as we later learned, wasn't much of a stretch) in Judd Apatow's groundbreaking dramedy Freaks and Geeks. Seth ditched school, moved to Los Angeles and never looked back. "I worked really hard," Seth told CNN. "It's not like I dropped out of high school and just did nothing. I dropped out of high school and went and worked on a TV show. We were writing a script all throughout high school. I probably worked harder than most people who were just doing high school stuff...I think, honestly, if you have a career in mind that isn't academically oriented, then high school is probably not going to lead you to what you want to be."

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Long before winning an Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, Hilary Swank dropped out of South Pasadena High School to pursue an acting career and landed roles on TV series while her former schoolmates were studying algebra. "I'm not proud to say I'm a high school dropout," Hilary admitted in an interview with The Today Show. "I'm not proud that that's something that happened, but it happened."

Jim Carrey's childhood was rough, his cash-strapped family even living in a VW van for a while. Jim and his sibings even had after-school jobs as janitors in a factory until their mother became ill, forcing Jim to drop out of school in order to take care of her. When his family eventually moved to Toronto, Jim began performing at local comedy clubs and wound up being cast in a TV series at age 18. He later moved to LA to pursue his dream of stardom, famously writing himself a $10-million cheque in 1983, post-dating it for 10 years in the future as a reminder to never lose sight of his goal.

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School was not a great fit for Ryan Gosling, who told The New York Daily News that when he saw Sylvester Stallone's Rambo the young method actor actually became Rambo. “So much so, that one day, I took a bunch of steak knives to school and threw them around at recess time because I thought we were in the movie!” It was not surprising when, at age 17, he dropped out of Toronto's Lester B. Pearson High School to pursue an acting career, quickly landing a spot in the revamped Mickey Mouse Club alongside the likes of youngsters Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

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Mark Wahlberg dropped out of school in the ninth grade, partly so he could focus on becoming a rapper and partly because he hated school. Yet dropping out has always been something the actor/producer has regretted, and in 2013 he finally earned his high school diploma—25 years after he dropped out! "For almost a year, I've been taking classes and studying any chance I could get," Mark wrote in a piece for The Huffington Post. "On the set, traveling for work and at home. It has been both humbling and challenging, but I'm happy to report that I am officially a high school graduate, having received my diploma this summer."

Attendance was a big problem for Charlie Sheen during high school, since he only showed up for class about a third of the time. Like Wahlberg, Charlie has always regretted dropping out before he graduated. "I had 198.5 credits and I needed 200 to graduate," said Charlie. "I was that close." Also like Wahlberg, Charlie finally achieved his missing credits and graduated, presented with his diploma by Jay Leno during a September 2013 appearance on The Tonight Show.

As part of a famous family that included director Francis Ford Coppola and Rocky actress Talia Shire, it's not surprising that Nicolas Cage (who changed his name from Nicolas Coppola) dropped out of Beverly Hills High School at age 16 to focus on becoming an actor. It didn't take him long; by age 17, he landed a role in a TV series called Best of Times and more roles followed. 

New Jersey native John Travolta decided to drop out of high school and move to New York City when he found it difficult to balance his day job as a student with his burgeoning career as an actor. "I was only an average student," he said in a newspaper interview. "Not too many of my friends identified with what I was doing. I participated in football and basketball, and did what they were doing, but not many kids understood my going to acting studios at night."

Robert Downey, Jr. already had numerous acting credits under his belt when he decided to drop out of LA's Santa Monica High School in 1982. He eventually wound up in New York, where he became part of the cast (albeit not for long) on Saturday Night Live before returning to Hollywood. While substance abuse issues nearly destroyed his career, Downey's career is back on track as one of Hollywood's most bankable box-office heavyweights.

Johnny Depp was a Florida high school student when he dropped out at age 15 with dreams of rock stardom. When his band, The Kids, became successful locally, they decided to head to Los Angeles to take a shot at the big time. While the rockstar thing never worked out, Depp began dabbling in acting, landing roles in TV and films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street. In 1987, Depp headed to Vancouver to star in the breakout role of a young cop masquerading as a high school student in 21 Jump Street, which led to leading roles in John Waters' Cry-Baby and Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands.

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