Nolan Gould and Atticus Shaffer were in the nationally televised Spelling Bee this week. But they’re only the genius child actors who’ve most recently wound up in the spotlight for something besides their acting chops. The Daily Beast rounds up the brainy kids with SAG cards.
Luke Dunphy is … not the smartest young man on TV, but Nolan Gould is quite the opposite. He turns his personality around to play the adventurous Luke. The Modern Family star was part of the Scripps National Spelling Bee this week and is a member of Mensa with an IQ of 150. He showed Ellen DeGeneres, on The Ellen Show, that he is made up of the real-smart stuff.
This 13-year-old TV actor brings comedy to The Middle in his role as the smart kid. Turns out, Atticus Shaffer can relate more to that role than some might realize. He participated in the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee, televised live on ESPN this week. His appearance on Jimmy Kimmel was most likely after this young man’s bedtime, but he seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.
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The child actor in Mom’s Got a Date With a Vampire tested in the 99th percentile on his IQ test—when he was 6. The TV George Little might have been a little nerdy, which is perfect for this member of Mensa. The now 20-year-old has been off the acting radar for a few years, but maybe he is off discovering a new scientific theory.
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This MIT graduate earned a degree in physics and got a job working on missile defense for the U.S. government. He also went to Yale and received his juris doctor degree. Even when Charlie Korsmo was acting as a kid, his brain was wandering elsewhere—like to his science project, a working rain forest. His acting in What About Bob? and Hook was well received, but he definitely went on to accomplish a lot more.
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Her little role on The Big Bang Theory was not big enough for this genius. The Blossom child star kept up the grades while acting and went to UCLA, after turning down Harvard and Yale. She left with a degree in neuroscience, but did not stop. The smart mom continued on to get her Ph.D. from UCLA.
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The child genius always seems to be playing the younger version of somebody—he plays little Sylar in Heroes and little Chuck in NBC’s Chuck. However, Joshua Rush has a mind of his own. The TV actor is bilingual (English and Spanish) and was featured on a local news segment in Texas on how to raise smart kids. When he was even younger, he could name cars by only their logos.
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His big screen debut came with two big names in Hollywood—Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks—in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close last year. The genius took home almost $32,000 on Jeopardy! during Kids Week in 2010. He can also speak Mandarin, as co-star Bullock found out while filming.
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The child star best known as Winnie Cooper in The Wonder Years grew up to be a wonder in the field of math. She graduated from UCLA summa cum laude and co-authored a paper with her professor. McKellar has continued acting in little roles on How I Met Your Mother, but grew up better than fellow child actresses. Along with risqué photo shoots, she’s written three books with interesting titles such as Hot X: Algebra Exposed and Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who’s Boss.
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The girl always wearing her pearl necklace is the smarty pants of the family and the star student at Springfield Elementary. Although she’s been in the middle of some hot topics, she’s kept her head level. Lisa Simpson has an IQ of 159 and at age 8 she was invited to be a member of Springfield’s Mensa.
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