In addition to her impressive filmography, Natalie Portman also has the distinction of being a scientist among her many other accomplishments.

The stunning woman is proudly a Harvard graduate and an Oscar winner.

She attended Harvard University from 1999 to 2003. She turned down numerous movie roles while she was a student before picking them back up after earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

When Portman revealed to the media that she would be attending the esteemed Harvard University right after working on the “Star Wars” prequels, she said, “I’d rather be smart than a movie star.”

Portman had started her acting career at the ripe age of 11 and had since built up a fairly successful career. But the “Black Swan” actor chose a different route and put off her career in favor of a college degree, in contrast to her peers who made the decision to give up on education and pursue acting full-time.

She explained to Variety in 2016: “I came from such a serious, academic family, where the only thing that was acceptable was to be very literate and educated—you become a professor or a doctor or a lawyer.”

Portman even disclosed that her father attempted to persuade her to change careers. “My dad pulled me aside when I was 25 and was like, ‘I think it’s time for you to go to law school or grad school.’ Not that he was saying that acting was bad, but more that he was like, ‘I think you’ll be more fulfilled if you have something more.'”

But her drive to be an actress won. That is the reason she decided to continue. “It took me a while, coming from that background, to be like, ‘This is what I want, and this is what I love.'”

“There are very few people who are as naturally gifted as Natalie is, who have as much intellectual horsepower, or who worked as hard as she did,” according to one of her former instructor, Abigail A. Baird, who told the New York Times. “She never took anything for granted.”

Natalie seems to draw heavily on her psychological training in the characters she portrays.

“I was always very driven and busy as an actress, and at university, I learned how to socialize much more. I was also able to have a life that had nothing to do with the film industry and the kind of strange existence celebrity creates for you,” the actress said in an interview with Mirror.

Portman’s professors all agreed that she was an excellent student. Professor Stephen M. Kosslyn told The Harvard Crimson, “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. She is now demonstrating the results of that determination and focus.”

After earning her psychology bachelor’s degree in 2003, Portman continued her education by enrolling in a number of graduate programs at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2015, she visited her alma mater and gave an impactful graduation address in which she reflected on her time at Harvard.

The actress spoke about her experiences with imposter syndrome. According to Us Weekly, she said, “When I came in as a freshman in 1999, I felt like there had been some mistake. That I wasn’t smart enough to be in this company, that every time I opened my mouth, I would have to prove that I wasn’t just a dumb actress.”

She also acknowledged having experienced some “dark” times while an undergraduate. “It’s easy now to romanticize my time here, but I had some very difficult times here too. Some combination of being 19, dealing with my first heart break, taking birth control pills that have since been taken off the market for their depressive side effects, and spending too much time missing daylight,” Portman added. “There were several occasions I started crying in meetings with professors, overwhelmed with what I was supposed to pull off, when I could barely get myself out of bed in the morning.”

Numerous well-known people who have graduated from Harvard, an Ivy League institution, have joined Natalie Portman in making their mark on the world.

Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, enrolled at Harvard when she was a senior, but they didn’t really interact.

She was a senior and Zuckerberg was a freshman when Facebook was in its infancy, the actor revealed.

She told People, “I think I was really lucky to have been there before social media. Actually, Facebook was invented when I was a senior by freshman Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard. So I went to school with no Facebook, no Instagram, no cameras on phones. So I was really able to go about my business and not have it documented for public consumption,” she explained. “Which was really lucky ’cause, guess what? It’s good to like, make mistakes and do stupid things when you’re a teenager and young adult and not have it hunt you forever… Thank you Mark Zuckerberg for being very young.”

She also said that while she and Jared Kushner were in the same class, they were “friends,” but that their friendship has since deteriorated. On “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” she quipped. “There’s not a lot funny to say about someone you were friends with becoming a super villain,” she said on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” She added, “He said in some interview that the friends he’s lost because of politics, it’s like exfoliating. And I was like, ‘OK, I like the spa metaphors,'” to which Colbert responded, “So you’re a dead skin cell.” And her response? “Proudly.”

Many of the individuals Portman worked with were Harvard students as well, although not at the same time. At this Ivy League institution, Terrence Malick majored in philosophy, while The Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky majored in social anthropology and studied filmmaking.