In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, we’re shouting out all the celebrities who once led classrooms before they hit the big time.
Although it’s hard to imagine our favorite celebrities as anything less than famous, most stars don’t begin their careers with a big break right off the bat. In fact, it might have taken our most beloved actors and singers quite a few hits and misses for fame to come knocking on their door.
And, with school season officially in full swing this year, we decided to look back at all the celebrities who were once teachers before finding fame. Although some celebrities, like former President Barack Obama‘s time teaching law at the University of Chicago, might not come as a surprise, we definitely did not expect this list to be so long and diverse.
Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, for example, was a “long-term sub in kindergarten and seventh grade” before making it as an actor. “High school is my favorite just because of my ability to connect with the students,” he told PureWow in 2021. “I think it stems from the fact that high school was a real shift, a real fork in the road for me as a student and it helped me get on the right track. It was a real hinge point in my life so I think that’s what drew me to it.”
To find out all the other celebs who commanded classrooms before the stages, scroll below!
Hugh Jackman
Before becoming Wolverine or Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, Hugh Jackman worked as a gym teacher at Uppingham School in England back in 1987. In 2013, Jackman even went viral after recognizing a former student during a red-carpet event. “How was your education?” the actor asked. “Did I set you up for life?”
Liam Neeson
Many years ago, action star Liam Nesson spent two years studying to be a teacher. “It’s probably the most difficult job I’ve ever tried to master,” he told ESPN. “I have so much admiration for [teachers]. I found it impossible to teach 12 and 13-year-old girls and boys.”
“This particular kid did not want to settle down, he wanted to disrupt the whole class. So I went over to him and asked him to leave the classroom and stand outside. The next thing he pulled a knife on me,” Neeson remembered. “My reaction was to punch him, which I shouldn’t have done, but I felt threatened.”
Billy Crystal
Actor and comedian Billy Crystal was also once a high school teacher. “I was a per diem floater in the same junior high school I went to,” he told Oprah Winfrey. “I sat in the office and made $42.50 a day, and whenever a teacher was absent, I’d substitute. I taught everything from English to auto shop.”
Looking back, however, Crystal admits that teaching was a natural gift. “I’d be at the front of a class saying, ‘Listen, I don’t know anything about science, but these two guys walk into a bar…'” he joked. “I’d only been out of school for a few years. I couldn’t bring myself to call the teachers by their first names. I was like, “Ed, could you pass…? No, no, you’re Mr. Graff to me.” And the funniest part was being in the teachers’ lounge.”
Jon Hamm
Can you imagine having Jon Hamm as your teacher? Believe it or not, the iconic Don Draper once taught. “I think teaching is one of the greatest professions on the planet, and I had the good fortune to do it for a year,” he told the Today Show. “I would definitely go back to it, and I might still.”
Fun fact: one of Hamm’s students during his short tenure was none other than Ellie Kemper. Who knew?
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Before his big break after writing In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda taught middle-schoolers. “I taught seventh grade English and one of my two favorite things to teach was Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe,” the Hamilton creator told The Harvard Crimson. “It was amazing to watch seventh graders grasp it because there is some really tough stuff in it, but once they get their heads around it, it inspires a lot of amazing writing from them.”
“The other one was A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” he continued. “The best way to teach any Shakespeare is to get up and do it because they’re plays—they’re not pieces of literature to be read—and so I’d make every kid in the class play a part every day, and we read through the whole play, and it was a lot of fun. So that’s always a real highlight.”
Sheryl Crow
After graduating with a degree in music composition, performance, and teaching from the University of Missouri, Sheryl Crow put it immediately to good use as she became a music teacher in the Rockwood School District in St. Louis, per The List. Not long after her brief teaching tenure, however, Crow left it all behind to pursue music in Los Angeles. Guess it worked out!
Sting
Who wouldn’t want a true rockstar as their teacher? As it turns out, many students had that pleasure as The Police vocalist Sting, né Gordon Sumner, worked as an English teacher and soccer coach for two years at St. Paul’s in Cramlington, England. According to the University Herald, Sting once said teaching is “One of the most important jobs in the planet.” We couldn’t agree more!
Jesse Williams
Before swooning us all as Jackson Avery in Grey’s Anatomy, Jesse Williams was also a teacher. “High school is my favorite just because of my ability to connect with the students,” he told PureWow in 2021. “I think it stems from the fact that high school was a real shift, a real fork in the road for me as a student and it helped me get on the right track. It was a real hinge point in my life so I think that’s what drew me to it. But kindergarten was a lot of fun. Always an adventure, it certainly helped me prepare more for parenthood than anything else. I totally felt like Kindergarten Cop.”
Most of all, becoming a teacher gave him a greater appreciation of the day-to-day struggles teachers in public schools face each day. “I was a student in very under-resourced schools growing up and I became a teacher in under-resourced schools so I’ve seen both peer-to-peer and student-to-student the role that having a lack of supplies can have on students,” he remembered. “It can really weigh them down.”
Gene Simmons
Kiss frontman Gene Simmons also had a surprising job before fame: teaching sixth grade! Comparing both his former and current industries, Simmons opened up about the struggles he faced. “The rewards are much greater in the music business, but the pitfalls are very deep,” Simmons told Parade. And though, according to him, they both gave him time in the spotlight, “In one, you’re in front of an audience who may not want to be there.”
Sylvester Stallone
Before Sylvester Stallone discovered himself as an actor, he was hired by a Swiss boarding school for girls as a gym teacher and dorm bouncer, People reports. Though the job wasn’t anything to write home about, it’s there where he first found his love for acting: acting in Death of a Salesman. After that, Stallone applied to drama school and, well, the rest is history!
Barack Obama
Although it’s hard to imagine Barack Obama without the “President” title before it, he was just “Mr. Obama” for 12 years when he taught law at the University of Chicago’s Law School, The New York Times reported. During his tenure, which included three courses and even led him to the Senior Lecturer position, Mr. Obama was a favorite among the students but still kept his cards close to his chest with his fellow teachers. “He was a successful teacher and an absentee tenant on the other issues,” said fellow lecturer Richard Epstein.
Hillary Clinton
Earlier this year, The New York Times was announced that former First Lady Hillary Clinton would be teaching a new course at Columbia University. What many didn’t know, however, is that the former presidential candidate once had a brief stint as a professor at the University of Arkansas Law School in Fayetteville, Ark. The difference in teaching roles? 50 years!
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