Six degrees of qualification

SMALL PRINT:MOST ACTORS wait until they're famous to allow the congratulatory honorary degrees to roll in, but none of that dossing around for James Franco (pictured).

In his creative work he’s already the busiest young gun around, directing experimental short films, starring in blockbusters, making documentaries, exhibiting his paintings and publishing a well-received collection of short stories.

But it's his academic work that takes up most of his time, and he has just enrolled in yet another graduate course, this time the doctoral programme in literature and creative writing at the University of Houston. That's to go with a degree in English from UCLA, simultaneously attending Brooklyn College (fiction writing), New York University's Tisch School of the Arts (filmmaking) and Columbia University (creative writing) while commuting to North Carolina to study poetry at Warren Wilson College. Not to mention his ongoing PhD studies at Yale in English and plans to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. While Franco undoubtedly beats other actors for simultaneous studying, he's not the only actor with several letters after his name. His current co-star in Your Highness, Natalie Portman reverted to her real name, Natalie Herschlag, to study psychology in Harvard while filming Star Wars.She finished her BA in 2003, going on to the Hewbrew University of Jerusalem.

Jodie Foster earned a BA in literature from Yale. Maggie Gyllenhaal graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in literature and Eastern religions, before moving to London to enrol in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. But perhaps the most surprising Ivy-league brain box is David Duchovny who studied English literature at Princeton, completing a thesis on Samuel Beckett's early novels. He went on to receive an MA in English literature from Yale and began working on a PhD until The X Filesgot in the way.