25 celebrities who dropped out of school and made it big anyway

According to the Washington Post, Gosling had so much trouble with school that his mother had to home-school him for the fifth grade.

Gosling was 17 when he moved to New Zealand to shoot '90s historical-fantasy show "Young Hercules."

The "Love on the Brain" singer revealed to Social Magazine that "when I left Barbados, I didn't look back. I wanted to do what I had to do, even if it meant moving to America."

She was just a teenager when she moved into famed music producer Evan Rogers' house in Connecticut. One year later, she was auditioning for Jay-Z (a fellow dropout) and well on her way to stardom.

Lawrence was 20 when she received her first Oscar nomination for her role in "Winter's Bone," but she had been trying to make it as an actress since she was 14.

"I dropped out of middle school. I don't technically have a GED or a diploma. I am self-educated," Lawrence said during a "60 Minutes" interview, "I struggled through school, I never felt very smart."

Styles, according to Metro, was studying his "A Levels in Law, Sociology, and Business, and wanted to become a physiotherapist" before auditioning for "The X Factor." He dropped out of school shortly after, when One Direction took off.

Now he's 26, and has two solo albums, three Grammy noms, a Vogue cover, and two major film roles under his belt.

In 2016, Goldberg spoke with the Child Mind Institute, revealing that she wasn't able to keep up with her studies due to dyslexia (which she wasn't diagnosed with until later in life). It led to her dropping out of high school, though a lack of high school diploma hasn't slowed her down one bit: In fact, she's one of 16 people in history to have won an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).

When he announced that he was performing at Carnegie Hall in 2011 to benefit his Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation, he talked about his own history with school.

"Education is super important," Jay-Z said. "I don't have a high school diploma or a college diploma, but still for me to articulate, I had to have some form of schooling to articulate my thoughts."

According to Travolta, he was "an average student" and his peers couldn't identify with him "going to acting studios at night." He eventually left school and moved to New York, which resulted in a break-up with an unnamed high school sweetheart.

When Travolta was 21, he was cast as Vinnie Barbarino, an unruly high school student, in "Welcome Back, Kotter," and famously played high school student Danny in "Grease."

Applegate became famous when she was just 16 years old and scored a role on "Married ... with Children," which lasted for 11 seasons.

"I was in this from such a young age and it just never stopped. It was like a continuum," she told ABC News in 2018.

EDUinReview reports that Radcliffe decided to take a break from schooling in 2006 to focus on his acting career, and hasn't returned since.

In an interview with Parade, Radcliffe revealed he wasn't that great in school anyway.

I wasn't very good in school at all," Radcliffe said. "I was kind of useless. I found the work really, really difficult."

Much of the focus on Downey's life has been on his substance abuse and jail time, so it's easy to forget he dropped out of high school as a teen.

Soon after, at age 20, he was added to the cast of "Saturday Night Live," but was fired after just one season. Obviously, this didn't affect his prospects too much — "Avengers: Endgame" is the highest-grossing film of all time.

The "Chicago" star left school in the UK when she was just 15 to go on tour with a production of "The Pajama Game." She stayed in the theater space for years before getting her big break in "The Mask of Zorro."

Rogen has been open about his opinions on education, telling CNN in 2013, "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, honestly. I did stand-up comedy all throughout high school. 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."

Law was 17 when he began working on "Families," a British soap opera. Ten years later, he was internationally recognized for his role in "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

As a high school dropout playing a high school teacher, Swank got asked some tough questions during her press tour for "Freedom Writers."

She admitted, "I'm not proud to say I'm a high-school dropout [...] but it happened. I think school is really, really important, and we have an education problem in this country and it's a shame. It's a shame for any kid to feel hopeless about their future."

Carrey dropped out of school at age 16 to work as a janitor in order to help support his family. However, he had been performing stand-up since the age of 15, and was already opening for big comedy acts like Rodney Dangerfield.

At the age of 18, Carrey found his first credit with TV series, "The All-Night Show."

Diaz and Snoop both attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School, but Diaz left when she was 16 after signing a modeling contract. She's also said that she was bullied for being too skinny.

Barrymore was was already a big-screen actress at age 3, and playing Gertie in "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" by age 7.

In 2015, she spoke to the Guardian about her unconventional childhood, stating that her "life was not normal. I was not a kid in school with normal circumstances."

In her memoir "Wildflower," Barrymore reflected on her experiences as an emancipated 14-year-old. "Once I was emancipated, I had simply dropped out of school," she wrote, "I decided to create my own school, to self-educate: I will buy a dictionary and study every word. I will steep myself in all the things I love. I decided right then and there I would not be defeated. I would create my own curriculum. And so I did just that: I read, I cleaned, I worked."

Dempsey originally tried to make it as a juggler, but quickly turned to acting instead. His most well-known character, Derek Shepherd on "Grey's Anatomy," attended Bowdoin College, and the school decided to honor him with an honorary doctorate.

Dempsey shared that once his high school got wind of his college degree, they decided to give him his high school diploma as well. "I graduated high school on Friday and got the doctorate on Saturday. It was a remarkable weekend," said Dempsey.

Brandon described himself as "a bad student, chronic truant, and all-around incorrigible," which lead to his father sending him to military school in Minnesota. Not even military school could change his behavior, and he was quickly expelled.

When he arrived in New York City at age 18, he slept on the streets until he found work. In a true rags-to-riches story, Brando would eventually become one of the most well-known actors in history.

Biography.com reports that Cage took an acting class over the summer when he was 15, and promptly dropped out of school to pursue that dream.

His first acting credit came a year later, in a TV movie called "Best of Times," in which he was still credited as Nicolas Coppola (his real name). His first credit with his stage name came two years later for his role as Randy in "Valley Girl."

Winslet told Colbert in 2017 that she was 16 and "working at a delicatessen" to save money for the train ride into London for auditions. By 17 she had been cast in a film directed by Peter Jackson called "Heavenly Creatures."

Monroe's mother struggled with mental illness, and her father was unknown, leaving her to bounce around between foster care and orphanages until the age of 11, which made a consistent education difficult.

Biography.com states that Monroe dropped out of school when she was 15, and that by age 16 she was married to her 21-year-old neighbor, James Dougherty.

He was constantly moving around and switching schools, making it difficult for him to keep his grades up. He actually failed the ninth grade three times before dropping out at 17 to pursue music.

In an interview with "Private Sessions," Lavigne recalled her origin story. She was on a trip to New York to sing for a producer, when LA Reid (who has worked with Rihanna, Justin Bieber, and OutKast, to name a few) heard her singing and signed her right then and there. She then moved from Canada to New York and dropped out of school when she was 15.

Lavigne released her first album when she was 18, titled "Let Go."

"I dropped out of high school. I was not a hard worker. [...] It wasn't that I just dropped out and never went back — at the end of the year I had too many absences to graduate," Chastain revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

• Read more:
• 33 celebrities who knew each other in high school
• Here's what 60 celebrities looked like in high school
• Migos rapper Quavo just graduated high school at 29 and is now looking for a college: 'We lit'
• 15 of the best movies about high school to watch right now